Friendships cannot always
last forever
 (Ring,
ring)
"Hello"
"Hi, is Brian there?"
"This is."
"Hey, it's Kevin."
". . . . . . . . Kevin! My
bad. How's it been? Damn, it's been a while."
We were best friends for
10 years. I knew him better than his own mom did. But here I was, a
second away from having to hear his last name to recognize him.
I hadn’t talked to Kev
in three years, and I had almost forgot him. How could I do that?
You all must have friends
like this. Ones that for a period in your life you were inseparable
from and now you don't even know where they are or what they're doing.
High school friends are a prime example.
Even here at Purdue I have
friends where the bond is slowly dying or has already hit the floor.
One semester you two are like peas and carrots. You looked forward to
seeing each other in class. You drink beer with them on the weekends
and have their phone number memorized better than your brother's.
You feel like you will know
each other for the rest of your lives and take that friendship to your
graves.
Now if you see them on campus,
you just give an awkward smile and say, "Hi, how's it going?" As they
pass by saying only "good", you wonder, "Why are we like this? It used
to be so much better."
It's such a depressing, empty
feeling.
Come on. "Hi, how's it going?"
Think about it. We say the same thing to the guy at the tollbooth.
The only difference is that the guy at the tollbooth ignores you.
So what happened to make
the friendship go down the tubes?
Most of the time, one of
you starts to drift away and leaves the other in the dust. But other
times it wasn't anyone's fault. Being great friends with that person
just wasn't meant to be.
Once you realize the friendship
is over, you reflect on the past. Where did it go wrong? You then get
torn between why's and what-ifs.
What if I had tried to get
in touch with him over the summer? What if I had invited her to go out
that night when I knew she was free? Why didn't I have a million things
to say to her back in August when I hadn't seen her all summer?
Might we still be good friends?
And we'll never know, so
don't live in the past. Life is too short for big, hypothetical questions.
Think about now and what
you can do to help it. If it's not too late, go out of your way to make
them feel like you're not drifting apart. Give them a call, take them
out to lunch and catch up on what you've missed.
But even if you think it's
too late, don't think it's over. Every now and then you're thrown a
lifeline, like Kevin did to me. Take advantage of it. Grab that lifeline
and don't let it slip by. Use the opportunity to try and start all over
again.
And don't always wait for
them either. Take the initiative and pick up the phone yourself. Call
an old friend up after not seeing him for two years. Don't be afraid
of rejection. You might worry, "Oh it'll be way too random and he might
not even recognize me."
He'll recognize you, and
he'll be glad you called. You were great friends for a period of your
life — stuff like that isn't forgotten.
On a less optimistic note,
don't think you're going to keep all your current friends forever. Every
now and then, the excitement you had when you started hanging out dwindles,
and then one side starts drifting away. Once the other realizes the
drift, their efforts to save it don't always work.
A friendship is like two
people trying to carry a keg in from the car in this respect.
When one relaxes their grip,
the other can only hold on for so long before it falls to the ground
(and then people complain about foam the whole night).
Some friendships can be fixed.
Others are long gone. Your job is to figure out which ones are which.
Don't chase after the ones that weren't meant to be. Trying to do that
is one of the worst experiences in the world. It's like trying to run
a marathon that never ends. But when you see one that can be fixed,
work your butt off to do so.
Let me tell you, a rekindled
friendship is one of the coolest things in the world.
And for all of those dying
friendships here at college, you better get started now. You'll be out
of here before you know it. I'm starting to attend job fairs, but it
feels like Boiler Gold Rush just ended last week.
Don't leave here with any
regrets. Hold onto that keg. Leave here with an address book full of
friends that you'll hear from for the rest of you're life.
OK, you've seen the softer
side of Brian Dillon. Don't get too used to it. Next week it's back
to jokes about monkeys and bodily functions. Till then, guys.
Brian Dillon is a junior
in the School of Technology.
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