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Northwest Area Class of 1962 celebrates 55th class reunion

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<p>It seems like the further you get in school, the harder it is to make friends.</p><p>I think this is especially true for people who&#8217;ve gotten their school/social life balance figured out; if they&#8217;re taking a full load of upper level courses, there is a lot more school and a lot less social life.</p><p>If you&#8217;re like me, you made a bunch of friends your freshman year, and then they all either dropped out or graduated by the time you were a junior.</p><p>I would argue that my lonely lunches as a senior are the result of the comparative ease of making friends as a freshman.</p><p>Think about it; it&#8217;s almost like a survival thing. You are fresh out of high school; maybe this is the first time you&#8217;re living away from your parents, and you know almost nobody. For a lot of people (myself included), everything is terrifying at first.</p><p>Freshmen need to make friends. This is a scary situation, whether they&#8217;d like to admit it or not. There is strength in numbers.</p><p>I know I was in survival mode. I&#8217;m not anymore, and I&#8217;m not surrounded by people who are. There is no more urgency.</p><p>Now add the time factor to this.</p><p>I know when I was a freshman, I had a hard time justifying doing something I didn&#8217;t want to do (biology homework) at the expense of doing something I wanted to do (hang out with my friends). So I did the latter.</p><p>I have more self-control now. Not much more self-control, but more self-control.</p><p>I also have more reading to do. I have so much to do, in fact, that I&#8217;m not sure if there is enough time in my life to read everything I have to read and also eat, go to class, go to work and sleep.</p><p>That means that when I&#8217;m eating lunch, instead of inviting someone I want to be friends with, I just read. I probably only have 15 minutes before class anyway.</p><p>I also think that as you get older, you start to recognize that friendship is about quality, not quantity. I&#8217;m comfortable with having a few good friends and a lot of acquaintances. This was not necessarily the case when I was just a little bit younger.</p><p>Having fewer friends does not have to be a bad thing; it just means that the friends you have now, who have stuck around, are worth keeping around for longer.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Toni Pennello</p><p>tpennello@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Toni Pennello is a Wilkes University senior who works in the Times Leader newsroom.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

College Life: Making friends harder as an upperclassman