By now, I’m sure everyone has seen Mean Girls, considering it’s arguably the best teen movie of our generation. But for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past eight years, let me fill you in on one of my favorite parts of the movie: the cafeteria scene. New girl Cady Heron, who at this point is still a ginger and not yet a drug addict, walks into her high school cafeteria with Janis Ian (some girl in dark, angry clothing). Janis hands Cady a detailed, colorful map that accurately depicts the seating positions of their high school’s different cliques—my personal favorites being “Girls Who Eat Their Feelings” and “Sexually Active Band Geeks.” Although the cliques in my high school cafeteria were nowhere near as hilarious, a similar system did exist. But if you were to ask me which table I sat at, I wouldn’t be able to tell you, because in all honesty, I felt, and still often feel, just as lost as Lindsay Lohan’s character did.
Throughout the course of my own social life, I’ve never really belonged to a defined clique, nor have I ever had my very own personal group of friends. My best friends were usually scattered all around the school cafeteria, eating lunch with their respective cliques and friend groups. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not one of those dark, brooding, and antisocial kind of guys. In fact, I’m probably the exact opposite. It’s just that the idea of spending all of my time with a single group of people has never really appealed to me. I enjoy actively meeting new people and making new friends. I love being in large groups, and I’m always trying (and often failing) to make people smile. These can be hard to do if one gets too attached to a particular social circle.
In short, I’m definitely a people person, but while I’ve been called a “social butterfly” numerous times, it isn’t that simple. Yes, I admit that I’ve earned somewhat of a reputation for being “that guy who is friends with everyone,” but I’m not so sure if I actually deserve this title. While I delight in the initial chase of a friendship, as soon as I’ve been with a certain group of people for longer than usual, as soon as things start getting more intimate and personal, I start to panic. I leave, and I search for another group of people to spend time with—because deep down, I’m terrified. Despite my innate love of roller coasters, horror movies, and Ouija boards, one of the things I find most frightening is forming close relationships with other people.
To some extent, this fear comes from my upbringing. Growing up, one of the things my family stressed the most was the old adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and as a result, I’ve always been wary of spending too much time with a certain friend or group of people. I’m afraid that if I do, I might grow to dislike them, or worse—they might end up despising me. That’s why I’d much rather flutter around from group to group, making penis jokes and exchanging funny anecdotes, instead of sharing deep and personal experiences, because in all honestly, I’m terrified of opening up to people, and I certainly don’t want anyone knowing my worst fears, my deepest, darkest secrets, or my countless personality flaws. I guess that’s also why I always try to maintain such a sunny disposition—because deep down, I’m afraid that I’m actually a terrible person, and I don’t want anyone to ever see that side of me.
Yes, I admit that my fears are somewhat irrational, but they are certainly not out of the ordinary—especially among my fellow freshmen. We’ve spent so much of our high school careers sorting out our identities and figuring out our places in the world that we have a hard time readjusting when we arrive at college. Everything we once knew about ourselves is thrown up in the air, and while the core parts of our identities may remain the same, nothing is immutable.
Luckily, all college students go through this together—even the ones who seem perfectly confident and in control—but contrary to what others may insist, it’s perfectly okay. After all, college is probably the last time in our lives where it is acceptable to be unsure about who we are and what we want. In the next few years, we’ll be asked to make so many decisions—choosing a major, finding a career path, committing to a significant other—so why not take this time to really find ourselves? Or we could wait 20 years, have a mid-life crisis, and hop on a plane to Southeast Asia, like Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love—but that’s an entirely different piece to be written.
No, I may not have found a clique of my own, but that doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. I love all the friends I’ve made, but I also love meeting new people and mixing things up. Maybe one day, I’ll find a group and stick with it, but until then, I know that I’ll be just fine—as long as I don’t start eating my meals on one of the toilets at Leo’s…
