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[Urist McScoopbeard]

Sweet, I graduated high school! and i'm goin' to college! (pretty easy for my neanderthal-like intellect surprisingly!)

... but i'm worried about not seeing my friends. I know that i'll be meeting a TON of new and awesome people at college, but there's also some people right now who I really care about. I have a good amount of "friends", but my REAL, trust-with-my-life friends? Only like 2 or 3. (Also, I've got very strong... "feelings" for one of them, but that's a different story.)

So, how do I keep the friend group together? I know everyone's gonna need space, but the prospect of abandoning them entirely abhors me! What should I do??? Anyone else successfully stay in contact through college??? (and beyond!) and if so, what are some things I can do to get people together?

Thanks for any help received!

P.S. I know I post a lot in this sub-forum (god, i'm so needy! D:) so again: thanks to everyone who's helped me out over the years!

[fucduck]

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[Delta Foxtrot]

You keep friends like you've kept them thus far. Spend time with them. Preferably mutually enjoyable times. Really that's it. Call them and fix something up. Go for a beer, have a game night, have a picnic and play ball. Whatever keeps you and your chosen friend(s) happy. And remember: quantity doesn't replace quality.

The big change here is that you won't be casually seeing each other unless it's by chance or you live in a really small place. So you need to make some conscious efforts to maintain your relationships. That conscious effort is really easy to skip if you don't think about it.

If it's a group, expect some fracturing. Some people simply grow distant, others move out of town etc.. Life happens, essentially.

[Vector]

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[Helgoland]

Generally, you'll lose quite a bit of contact, but it won't be a big deal. The real good friends you keep~

[nenjin]

College is like a colander for friendships. It sifts out a lot of your smaller acquaintances leaving behind the larger, more meaningful ones.

Once everyone has a car and/or might be going out of state, what constitutes a friendship starts to change. You kinda start to realize how other people viewed your friendship as they do or don't make the effort to maintain contact with you. Friendships in highschool are based on a lot of factors, many of which stop being as relevant when everyone turns 18 and can act more freely.

There's another big sifting of friendships once people start getting married and have kids.

But yeah, like Vector, I have friends I met in grade school who I still hang out with today. The people I talk to today from grade school, high school, middle school and college and the friendships that were the strongest out of all the ones I had. The rest I sort of consider "party friends" in that they're people who know you when you show up to parties, to strike up conversations with.

So, how do I keep the friend group together? I know everyone's gonna need space, but the prospect of abandoning them entirely abhors me! What should I do??? Anyone else successfully stay in contact through college??? (and beyond!) and if so, what are some things I can do to get people together?

If you're all still in the same town, organize a gaming night for Pen & Paper, Board Games, LAN Gaming, w/e. That has worked well for my group of friends. If you're all scattering to the 4 corners, organize an online gaming night. Play MOBAs or FPS or F2P games, something you'd all enjoy. I'd say for the last....10 years? the bulk of my friendtime has been done via online gaming and skype. Historically I've been the guy that hunts down games for people to play, and tries to be as inclusive as possible among my RL gaming friends. I've gotten less so since I've started working full-time again, but there was a time when I could get between 6 and 8 people a night ready to do something.

[nightcrafter27]

As someone going through the exact same thing, thank you all so much for the advice. And from what I've seen from friends a year ahead of me is that most everyone comes back home during winter break, summer, etc. You'll be able to see most of your highschool friends then.