As I’ve grown older, making friends has become more difficult. Some of that likely has to do with the pressures of high school. Since I was always so busy with homework, I socialized less, and some of my socializing ended up confining itself to study groups. Now that I’m in college, it’s hard to remember how to socialize in the first place. In fact, even when I do make friends, I tend to gravitate toward people who, like myself, aren’t very outgoing or who seem to have prominent personalities that are easy to follow along with. Sometimes, I don’t consider myself a very good friend, and I feel lost in my friendships.

I don’t even remember how I became friends with people as a child; I just remember having them. And, notably, those friendships were mostly based on shared interests. For instance, in third grade, it was jump rope, and in fourth, it was reading. Thus, despite my shyness, friendship was easy. I don’t remember too many playdates, but I felt that I had good friends at school and that I was a good friend in return.

My friendships in middle school were natural, possibly because those were the last few years where I wasn’t so consumed with schoolwork. I continued friendships from elementary school and made friends who introduced me to new interests, notably anime and the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. Some friendships ended, and some have continued up to the present. Overall, I felt that I had a decent group of friends, and even if I didn’t always get along with everyone all the time, the others in our group knew us well enough to help smooth over whatever the problem was.

What’s memorable about high school was that I entered into a series of acquaintanceships that passed for friendships.

The number of friends I had wasn’t very high, so eventually, I had lots of loose friendships with classmates. I’m glad some of these friendships happened, though, and I’ve even managed to keep them going; I actually did meet some great people in high school. However, most of my acquaintanceships have faded into being friends on Facebook and not much else.

Ultimately, in high school, I always had someone to chat with, especially since I was in an advanced program where everyone knew everyone. After my good experiences in middle school, however, I think I saw my acquaintanceships as a letdown, and that’s when I first began to separate friends I spoke to in class from “real” friends I hung out with outside of class. Looking back on it, however, even though it wasn’t the idealized high school experience, it was still mine.

As a yearbook staff member in middle school and a newspaper staff member in high school, I’ve had to figure out how to work with friends on…well, work. Both the yearbook and the newspaper were more important than just a regular class assignment. Thousands of people would see them, and as tangible evidence that said we were here, what went into them mattered.

I was perfectly fine working with friends when our ideas were the same or when we were working on different projects, but when we had different ideas about the same material, I tended to doubt myself and my ideas. Friends with dynamic personalities who could convince me that the problem in question should be done a specific way usually won out since I wanted to avoid conflict; I agreed with their viewpoints, especially if I wasn’t sure how to phrase my ideas or voice a complaint.

I like to think I’ve gotten better at this, and it hasn’t damaged any friendships so far, but I imagine this is something I’ll be working on for a while, and hopefully, it’ll get easier someday.

On the other hand, I have met lovely people through yearbook, newspaper, and, now, lifestyle magazines, and I’m planning on keeping those friendships steady. In my current extracurricular activities, it’s fun to bounce ideas off each other, and when you have an idea and you’re strengthening it and tossing ideas back and forth like a game of tennis, it is a great element in the creative process. You feel like an artist, and it’s even better that you’re planning with a friend, especially one who understands your thought process.

Over the last few years, I have practically been able to feel myself physically retreating more than usual. I’m not very good at letting myself loosen up if spontaneous events happen beyond my control. I enjoy having the schedule nice and neat. In some ways, that’s made it hard to maintain friendships. I’ve become friends with people similar to myself who are also wrapped up in school and don’t particularly want to go anywhere.

On the other hand, though, that leaves it up to me to try to make plans if I want to do something fun with someone, and I only sometimes succeed. That word “sometimes” makes it difficult to care about my friendships. If no one wants to go anywhere or do anything, fine! I’ll take myself to the library. But eventually, if this continues, I might not have any close friends. However, I have made friends in clubs and in classes, and there’s always something to talk about, even if it is just schoolwork. My internalized differences between class friends and real friends are possibly something I need to get over and work to change.

I realize that my personality hasn’t exactly helped me in this regard, but it’s difficult to change the way you think about things when everyone has a different opinion and thinks a different way.

There is no black and white when it comes to friendship; instead, it’s walking into a sea of gray. A small part of me worries about eventually becoming that lonely lady who lives with her cats and books, and I do my best to brush off those thoughts. But then, if I have such a hard time with real friendships (where I see the person on a regular basis for something other than a meeting or class), how will I possibly make friends outside of work as an adult? That is a terrifying question. I suppose one answer is to go out and do things: join clubs, wrangle my way into parties, attend events, and generally meet people. I already do some of that, and it has helped.

What’s hard is committing myself to the rest of it, or at least getting to a point where I feel like I’m doing enough work on my friendships. Another answer is to strengthen my current relationships. I will do my best to keep asking people to hang out and go places, and if they decline, I’ll come up with another idea. It’s okay, self. We’ll make it. We’ll get there.

Because I have always known I’m not a social butterfly, I feel strangely hopeful about the state of my friendships right now. I am working on them, the same way we all work on our relationships. At least I still have some time before I start thinking about making friends outside of a full-time job, which gives me some more practice. I still find myself asking, “How do people make new friends as adults?” Luckily, however, I have a few more years to think about an answer.