🙆 A (Hard-Learned) Lesson On Friendships

I have a 💗↔💀 relationship with my high school. It was one of those “special” schools where you either took an entrance exam to attend from 7th-12th grade, or do an interview when you’re four years old to attend from K-12th grade. Except you had to live in the city to qualify for an interview, so take that as you will 🤷‍♀️

It wasn’t fun having a 2+ hour long commute each day. Geographical privilege was certainly apparent, as students came from all five boroughs and therefore had different commute times. It’d range from a five-minute walk to a one-way hour long subway ride or more. We’d feel especially bad for the two Staten Island kids in my year who took the ferry every morning. Imagine having to ride a fucking boat to get to school.

Recently, I went through my high school yearbook with my partner. (Surprise! I’m cuffed now, by the most amazing person I could ever ask for.) After reading some yearbook messages, I realized that not every part of high school was as bad as it seemed. A good number of people, both students and teachers alike, left very touching messages, many of whom I’ve lost touch with today. What’s more is that I realized I didn’t have comments from many people I used to consider close friends back in 7th and 8th grade.

It’s kinda sad to think that the people who I used to spam with capslock the night before an essay was due, got literally dragged around by on the floor in the locker hallways, and ate sushi with in -5° weather on Randall’s Island are no longer in touch with me now. Why did I grow apart from these people?

It was simple. Some people became way more competitive—about where you’d get into college, whether you got straight A’s, whether you successfully cured cancer through your research… It’s understandable, knowing that you went to an “elite” high school where almost a quarter of students end up going to Ivy Leagues. If you’re used to being a top-performing student, you can’t help but feel pressured to get into a T20 school despite the fact that the US university rankings are absolute bullshit. Some developed different values in life, and others just found it harder to hold a conversation later on.

I’ve been told, by a high school friend who I still keep in touch with, that I’ve become much more outgoing and sociable. I think I used to be way less empathetic, turned down hangouts to study all day after school, and didn’t really have a friend group by the time I graduated. I renewed some friendships during & after college, and am still close friends with a few of my high school classmates even today. And now that I’ve matured more, I don’t have as black-and-white of a view on my high school experience as I did back then.

Here is some advice I would give to my younger self, and anyone else who finds themselves struggling in an academically competitive environment during the most developmental stages of their youth.

☝️ There's no use in holding grudges.

Some people aren’t gonna celebrate your success or express happiness for you when you land a hard-earned opportunity. It’s natural for them to feel jealous—after all, you got the opportunity and they didn’t. But it’s an even worse feeling when your friendship is affected by it in the long-term. If they stop talking to you or start interacting with you more coldly because you performed well and they didn’t, was the friendship really worth saving in the first place?

🚩 Don't date someone with obvious red flags.

🤝 Learn to forgive and move on.

I resented many things about my high school. How competition over college broke friendships. The way admin never seemed to give a shit about improving our mental health. Only after high school did I realize the importance of taking care of yourself above anything else—that is, making sure you’re getting enough sleep, eating enough nutrients, and surrounding yourself with people who genuinely want the best for you. But unfortunately, some people never reach that point.

So what did I like about high school, if anything? Despite the sleep deprivation, rush-hour subways, and competitive students vying to be at the very top, I developed meaningful connections with many of my teachers in both the sciences and the humanities. In fact, I still think about them from time to time. I became more educated, analytical, and outspoken about topics that I found myself growing passionate about, even if it took a period of adjustment. Although I probably would’ve been happier going to a zoned school in Queens, the education wouldn’t have been the same in many ways that ultimately mattered.

In the end, I don’t think anybody was a bad person. In fact, there’s a part of me that thinks that most people are inherently good. I’m not going to depict myself as the victim and claim that I wasn’t competitive either. But one of the saddest things in life is passing by the people you once hung out with five years ago during graduation and realizing that they won’t even meet your gaze, even if you tried.

There are studies that show that the happiest people in life are those who have close, positive relationships with other individuals, including friends, family, and significant others. Sometimes I wonder to myself, if you and I reconnected, would we be able to reach a point where we could mutually understand each other? Am I different from who you’d expected me to become now? Are you any different from the way you were before?

It’s easy to compare yourself to others in life. Everything is so much easier with numbers. Salaries, company rankings, GPAs… That is how society teaches you to distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack. But at some point, aren’t you tired of being the dog?

I don’t care about showcasing my accomplishments in order to prove my self-worth to anybody. I care about self-improvement and I’d want you to do the same—no matter how little of a change it seems. If I were to go back in time and revisit the final moments of graduation, I’d tell you this:

All I ask is that we be kind to each other. And I’m sure that we’ve all grown mature enough, after spending a third of our lives together in that glorious shithole of a place, to understand why that’s important. ❤️‍🩹

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