Friendship amazes. I came to Dartmouth knowing no one, and I leave four years later with a group of people who know and care about me -- my friends. And of course these friends are great, and of course they're a huge part of my college experience. But there's another group of friends that also know and care about me -- the ones I said goodbye to back in Albany four years ago.
I hung their senior photos on my dorm-room wall throughout freshman fall. There were e-mails and phone calls to discuss news of roommates and classes. I missed my friends from home immensely that first term. Or perhaps more accurately, I missed having people around me who already knew me and loved me.
Fortunately, I met some terrific people here at Dartmouth who became terrific friends. And I am grateful for this. But the result is an interesting phenomenon. Now my main friendships are split into two -- a group of home friends and a group of college friends.
My Albany amigos know me in a way my Dartmouth friends cannot. They know my killer cat, my quirky parents and my six-walled bedroom. They remember the crazy outfits I wore, the interesting junior prom date and the questions I asked in English class.
At the same time, however, my friends from home have no idea who I am when back in Hanover. They've heard about it all, but they don't really know the stresses here, what I do on Friday nights, the ups and downs of the past four years. My school friends are the ones who know these things.
Back in Albany, I drink more, I swear more, I talk more. We have our own lingo -- words with special meanings that only we understand. It was a conscious effort to adjust my speech when I came to Dartmouth.
The sense of humor I share with my home crew is different from what I share with my school friends. When I told this to a home friend she asked me what the sense of humor was like at Dartmouth. Then, adopting a British accent, she joked, "Why did Benjamin Franklin cross the road?"
Dartmouth's unusual academic calendar certainly doesn't make it easy to maintain these home friendships. At home during my first winter break freshman year, I learned how to knit in the endless days before my friends returned to town.
The following winter break, I got a job at the perfume counter in Lord and Taylor's -- at least I made some money while waiting for my social life to begin. I like hanging out with my parents, but by the time my friends finally arrive I am desperate for social interaction with my peers. And then, just as I get used to being with these people again -- and get used to actually using the telephone to communicate -- Dartmouth whisks me away once more.
Friendships are not static -- and that's something I've experienced with both groups. The first friends I made here at Dartmouth are not the same people I hang out with now. It wasn't until sophomore summer that I finally found a close group of girl friends to complement all the guy pals I had. I made more close friends on my FSP in Glasgow that fall.
I now have a solid circle of Dartmouth friends, but it didn't happen overnight. At home, things also changed. My best friend for all of high school is now someone I see once a year. The boy who I never really talked to until 11th grade is now a very close friend.
When I left home to attend Dartmouth in the fall of 1999, I started a new life that home friends can only learn about from my stories -- just as the friends I've made here in college can only know of my pre-Dartmouth life from what I share with them. This creates the interesting reality in which there are two different versions of myself. I love my friends and I'm grateful for them all, in whatever context they know me. The question, however, is this: if I am a different person to both groups of friends, then who am I really, and does anyone know me at all?
