By Alexis Rodriguez > Junior > English > Cornell University
Oscar Wilde once wrote “I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.” Friendship is something that happens accidentally. When you were younger you became inseparable with that kid with the weird haircut over the toy neither of you wanted to share. Now, you meet someone in class or at a party, spark a conversation, commonalities are discovered, and the rest is history.
No one likes to be alone. That’s why we have Twitter accounts, Facebooks, (dare I say MySpaces?), e-mail, parties, lunch dates, etc. Desire for companionship is human nature. But at what point does the need for a buddy at your side begin to severely affect your priorities?
Personally, I currently have 1255 friends and counting on Facebook. That’s 1255 people to stalk, 48290384903 pictures to click through, and way more personal statuses than I’d wish to waste my time reading. Yet I do anyways. For some strange psychological (possibly Freudian?) reason, we find the need to maintain bonds with “friends” we come across in our lifetimes. The question remains, is it really beneficial to spend so much time and energy into watering the gardens of ALL our relationships?
A part of growing up, in my opinion, is knowing who is necessary in your life, who isn’t, and letting go of the excess. Trust me, people can very easily bring you down and you won’t even realize it’s happening until it’s too late.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that you cannot make everyone happy. Yes, this might mean severing ties with those people who only ever want to hit you up to party and get pissed when you don’t want to. Or those people who only suck up to you when they missed class and need your notes. We don’t need absolutely every relationship that throws itself at us. Yeah, it might be cool to have those guys who you can argue with over who has the best NCAA bracket or that girl who you always have fun with when you go out but think of it in terms of sexual partners: the higher, your number gets the higher the risk of it becoming a detriment to you.
People should never be alone but if someone is going to cause unnecessary stress in your life, why are they in it to begin with? Never be afraid to let someone down because you can’t be everyone’s best friend. I mean, can you imagine if I actually spent quality time with all the 1225 friends I have on Facebook? In the end, the less stress your social life brings, the happier you’ll be.
Image Source: http://vator.tv/news/2011-02-03-vcs-are-not-your-friends
