Before Penn, I can’t remember the last time I had a boring friend. I’m not talking about the kind of boring defined as “not interesting,” but rather the kind of boring friend who’s content with just watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on your couch on a Friday night, while the rest of the world is at an Avicii concert. She’s not always looking to go party at the hottest bars or compete with you for attention. These are the friends that I never appreciated as much as I should have in high school. Boring never gets the credit it deserves, and I think it’s time it got some.
I’ve mulled over this idea in my head for quite a while. Maybe I was a bad judge of character in high school? Maybe people at Penn are just nicer? What could possibly be the reason for the drastic change from girls I used to call my bee–otches to ones I now actually call my friends?
I’ve narrowed it down to a couple of theories. Maybe in high school I totes thought I was like super cool and obvs had to be mixed up in all the cray–cray drama. I mean, wouldn’t you want to be friends with a chick who faked a pregnancy to win back her boyfriend’s heart? So scandalous! Doesn’t that sound like the perfect plotline for the next season of Real Housewives? In high school everyone knows that the “normal” girls -— the ones without a scandal or a drug addiction — aren’t what’s considered popular. Sometimes, I wish I could put my collegiate brain back into my high school body and show myself that boring is beautiful.
Or maybe in high school I had way too much time to freak out over my friends' problems. Holy shit, he what?! She got her ID taken away where? OMG, she got fat! Why was I so wrapped up in other people’s lives rather than my own? Like Lindsay Lohan's character in Mean Girls so eloquently said, “Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier. Calling somebody else stupid doesn't make you any smarter. And ruining Regina George's life definitely didn't make me any happier.” Who ever said that LiLo didn’t have anything valuable to offer to this world?
But it could be that I've just grown up. Gone are my days of obsessing over who the “cool” people are, and how I should become friends with them. As cliche as it all sounds, at Penn and in life, there is no cool crowd. On top of all the academic and job pressures, no one needs cool kid pressure too. Why relive college with the same insecurities?
So, if you’re still like me circa 2006, clinging onto some of those “friends” who seem to always be competing with you instead of supporting you, it’s time to let them go. Find someone who isn’t going into a friendship with an agenda. Those are the real gems, and those are the ones you’ll want around when nights at Smoke’s and Allegro are nothing but fond memories.
