Are your uni friends your friends for life?

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Its what people say but i got on really well with my college friends and now have no contact with most of them,

I never went to uni but you are only wit these people for three years i still speak to my school friends and I have known them for so long and i am glad they will always be my true friends no matter how much we still argue and fight i just feel those bonds can't be broken.

The difference is that you live with them, so you tend to spend much more time together. Aside from maybe a neighbour best friend where you go round their house every day, you probably see uni friends more in those three years than you see your school friends in ten.

It totally depends. I would only count a couple of people from school now as close friends, I've just drifted apart from most of them, we don't have much in common anymore. I've got more close friends from uni. But there's no rule on it, it's just who you meet, who you decide to keep talking to, etc.

Reply 21

Ggmu!

Wait till your separated by a few hundred miles, you'll see how bothered people are.

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Reply 22

Fashion Girl

Wahoo! Yeah, they are :biggrin:

Reply 23

Steezy

Original post by miser

I don't regularly talk to anyone from my primary school. I'm still in regular touch with one person from secondary school. No one from college. From uni I'm in still in touch with a few, but seeing them is becoming rarer. Most of my friends are friends through the hobbies I do.

What hobbies are they, out of interest?

I'm in the same boat as you but without the hobby friends....

Reply 24

Jamerson

Original post by Shadow-X

any1 wanna be friends for life wid me xD

Me, please

Reply 25

Katie_p

I have a few Uni friends who I've stayed in touch with for my year abroad other than for housing arrangements for final year. Of those, I expect only one or two wil remain "friends" after Uni, though the majority of them I would stop and chat to if I passed them in the street.
I'm terrible at maintaining friendships when I don't see people though. Aside from my "best friend" from school, who I barely messaged throughout first year and have only contacted a few times during 2nd and 3rd, the only person I make any effort whatsoever to talk to is my boyfriend. I've met a couple of schoolfriends also on their year abroad out here in Germany, and I'd meet them again, but I don't think we'd stay friends unless we had this in common.
Most of the people I was at school with, I wouldn't want to talk to, some I'd deliberately ignore even if they tried to talk to me. Same for people at Uni, but only a few of them, compared to the majority at school. However, my friendship circle at Uni is significantly smaller than it was at school.

I think friendships for life largely depend on your circumstances remaining the same, or a very exceptional sort of person. I'm definitely not that person. I really don't care if somebody I lived with never speaks to me again, or if I never know what X from my biology class went on to do in life. I simply wouldn't have any interest in having a friend for life, unless we worked together, or lived close enough together that we could occasionally meet for coffee. If I don't see someone at least one a year, there's no point staying in contact with them.

Reply 26

miser

Original post by Steezy

What hobbies are they, out of interest?

I'm in the same boat as you but without the hobby friends....

I practise aikido, iaido and jodo. I train 4-5 days a week and on mondays and fridays I go to the pub afterwards with a group of them, and on Saturdays we do the same but with tea/coffee/hot chocolate and snacks. I'm my aikido club's social secretary which means I organise club meals and things for us as well. There are a few annual observances, e.g., the town's Summer beer and cider festival, a Christmas house party, various parties and things for birthdays and life events of the clubs' members, as well as courses where we invite guest instructors down to teach for a weekend, usually with course meal on the Saturday evening.

Aside from the club events I spend a lot of time with my aikido teacher and his wife, and my girlfriend whom I met through the aikido club, and I regularly meet up with smaller groups of friends from the clubs, for example on Sunday I went with some friends from iaido for lunch at Yo Sushi.

I have a social life with my regular friends and family too but a lot of my social life is from these clubs.

Reply 27

Steezy

Original post by miser

Wow... Seems like an idiot proof way to get a social life. Thanks!

Reply 28

miser

Original post by Steezy

Wow... Seems like an idiot proof way to get a social life. Thanks!

My aikido club is pretty exceptional mind you - I've met a lot of people from other clubs and ours is uncommon in its sociability. Having said that, there are still tons of good clubs out there, and taking up a martial art and sticking to it is very beneficial for building skills that will translate to social success elsewhere. When I joined the club I was 16 and very, very shy, but the club has caused me to meet a lot of people and take on various responsibilities, which over time have shaped my character and led me to have the high self-esteem I enjoy today. When you first join you're just a normal member, but over time members come and go and you grow in seniority. You start doing things like leading warm-ups, class exercises, teaching beginners and so on. If you really stick at it, eventually you get yourself an instructor's licence of your own and can start teaching classes which is what I do today. I never imagined I'd be doing any of that when I was 16 - I didn't think I'd ever be able to or even want to, but here I am, so I can't extol the benefits sincerely enough if you think you are capable of the commitment.

Reply 29

Shadow-X

Original post by Jamerson

Me, please

post on ma wall *****

Reply 30

xDave-

Ha, no. Doubt I'll ever talk to any of them again. It's not that I don't like them, just that we'll be doing different things in different places. I'm not close enough to any of them to survive that.

Reply 31

zjs

It really depends. Some people remain very close with the people they went to school with, even during and after uni. I haven't seen some of my school friends in years, but it's a lasting friendship when we do see each other. From my enormous halls' group, I'd probably only count a handful as friends still and even less as 'friends for life'.

School friends are friends for a lot of years. Due to being school age, most socialising is done within this circle or through friends of friends. You tend to become one interlinked group. At university, it's a little different. There are plenty of people who don't come from the city and who don't have existing friendship groups in the vicinity, but everyone tends to have their old/school friends.

When you combine this with age and opportunity, people are more discerning. You become close friends at school over a matter of years from simply always being in each others' vicinity. There are always people you're friends with whose interests aren't that similar. While uni is the same, the fact that people move to different parts of the city/country/world and maintain wider social circles means the closeness can be harder to replicate.

I lived in London, where people tend to live in smaller houses (five or under) after they leave halls. Living on the same street or immediate locale as other people from halls is also harder. As such, the distance can cause the friendships to be reduced to 'people you occasionally go out with'.

My friendship circle now is a mixture of school, uni and work friends. Friends from uni form a far smaller part than I would have expected.