Best Friends- All about choosing the Ship That Sails

There are many ways to define friendship, having some form of attachment to a person, caring about them, etc. But a best friend is defined as,

“Out of all the people in the world, how did I choose you?”

Life chooses many things for us but friendship is one thing which we choose for life.

Making friends was an easy task during our school days. All we required was sharing a pack of biscuits, playing a game of hand cricket and maybe an occasional answer or two in the exam hall.

We had no expectations at all, we just spent all the time we could with them.

We picked our best friends as people we relate to and who we spend most of our time with. This is the time where we start understanding a lot about ourselves too, the type of friends we have molds our personality accordingly. Personally, I’m a Marvel and DC comic buff and the only reason I became one was because my best friend from school opened me to this captivating world of comics.

The worst part about having best friends in school is the separation when we move into college. We all plan about going to College together but life always plays its hand and it’s never fair. My two best friends from school, both of them went to different places for their undergraduate studies, one went to Mumbai and the other went to Nagpur while I stuck with Chennai. We do meet each other every 4-6 months but transitioning from them being a part of my life everyday to this is very hard.

Moving to college from school is one of the most biggest transitions in a teenager’s life. The best thing to do when moving to a new environment and meeting new people is to maintain an open mind and being ready to listen. It’s also important to give a good impression to people by being yourself. Many of us generally tend to have wild expectations on how fun college life will be and how cool your friends would be. But all that happened for me was that I met people very similar to me in terms of interests and backgrounds. I had my doubts initially but then realized that this was the best thing that could ever happen to me.

Friendship is based on the ability to relate to and understand each other so never try to befriend people just because they seem “popular” or “cool”.

Friendship can be of two types. Sometimes it can be a spark you feel from the first moment you meet them, the feeling that they would be an important part of your life. This is just based on pure instinct, it will take time to understand this get to know more about them. The second type is getting to know more about a person who has been in your life for over a long time and becoming closer to them. This type of friendship is sure to work in the long-term as you have no filters in getting to know them personally.

I took the engineering route after school and if there is one thing I’ve understood in this time, it is that you cannot get through this experience without the help and support of your best friends. I’ve had a lot of crazy experiences in college whether it be bunking classes, last-minute exam prep, sneaking out of college, writing practical exams without completing your record, all of it would be rather terrifying and discouraging if not for my friends who made all of it memorable and worth looking back at.

Only with your best friends, you learn that miracles do happen, your most random conversations with them teaches you a lot about yourselves. They understand you like no other and you can always open up with them about anything. It’s all about reaching that comfort zone with a person and this takes time and effort to develop.( And a lot of food too!).

Finally, to commemorate this Friendship Day, take a moment to look back and cherish all the memories that you and your friends have made for that’s what makes it worth to look forward in life everyday.