Maintaining Friendships After Highschool (Or Not)

So, you’re thinking of leaving home to go to UBC next year, or maybe you aren’t leaving home, but you won’t be going to the same school or classes as your BFFs anymore.  What does this mean?  Can you still be friends? Do you even want to be?  Can you live without them? Or will this be your chance to finally get rid of them?

Naturally, people’s feelings about their high school friends ranges dramatically.  A lot of people I know had friends in high school who they basically were friends with simply because you can’t sit in the same classrooms every day and have absolutely no one to talk to. And once they’re out of high school, they aren’t interested anymore and may never speak to those high school classmates again.  And that’s normal.  In high school you don’t always win the awesome-totally-gets-me-in-every-way-friend lottery, and when you’re out, you’re ready for new friends.

So then there’s the other situation, where you have a really close group of friends who you love dearly.  Leaving those friends can be really hard, and you don’t want those friendships to end just because you’re going to university.  Well my friend, those friendships don’t have to end.  Here’s a few ways you can keep the friendship magic alive:

1) Skype.  It’s free, so why not?  Now you can talk to your friend, AND see them. Awesome!  Definitely beats the phone.

2) Be penpals.  When you’re living in residence, nothing is more exciting than getting mail.  Plus it sometimes feels more personal than an email or instant message.  (Packages are even more fun! wink wink nudge nudge hint hint)

3) Create a (video) blog.  This is one thing me and my friends did this year, and it’s helped us stay really close.  We created a video blog (or vlog) on Youtube and we’d each upload a video once a week, just talking about what we’re up to, or just talking about or doing random stuff.  You can find our channel here, if you’re interested. (I haven’t mentioned the vlog on this blog before since its purpose was for me and my friends to stay in touch, rather than talk about UBC experiences.)

If you don’t want to make videos, you can also make a blog about what you’re doing for your friends to read at home, and they can make one too.  (Me and a few friends do that as well – but I’m not giving you the address for my personal blog! Mwahaha!) You can get a free blog at www.blogspot.com.

Seriously though, if you want to keep your friendship going, all it really takes is a little effort on both sides.  If all you do is instant message on facebook, that’s great, if that works for you.  As long as you contact your friends somewhat regularly in some way so you’re still a part of each other’s lives and check in with them when you’re at home, you should be fine.  This being said, there will be some people who you thought you’d be friends with forever that you end up drifting apart from.  That’s okay too; people change, and that’s okay.  Just remember you’ll be making lots of new friends too, so if a few old ones slip away, you’ll be all right, and you’ll always have your memories of the good times you had with them.