Why making and maintaining friendships can be difficult
Friendship is often seen as integral to an enjoyable time at school. Making those trickier days easier through communication and support. But for so many students making and maintaining friendships isn’t as easy as it should be, making the school environment feel hostile and scary. There are many challenges causing friendships to feel confusing, stressful and upsetting. According to a survey produced by Accenture Uk 24% of university students in the UK report they do not have one ‘real’ friend.
Although there are the added pressures of school work, making new friends may still be at the forefront of your mind when first joining school, perhaps a new sixth form or even university. One of the biggest difficulties when joining a new school is the presence of already established friendship groups. By the time you join this new environment, many groups may already feel ‘fenced off’. These established friendships may share their own stories,inside jokes and rules and for you on the outside it can feel intimidating trying to join in. You might worry about how to dress, how to act and what to say. These established groups may make you feel isolated and like everyone has already found their people whilst you are living in the background. But this shouldn’t intimidate you!
Friendships at school can often go wrong and become intense causing these minor disagreements to feel a lot larger than they are. I experienced this myself when I fell out with my close group of friends. At the time, this felt overwhelming and I stopped going to school. This not only affected my mental health, but also my grades. Thankfully, I eventually moved and began finding new friends, although this wasn’t easy and especially daunting at first, I eventually found ways to involve myself without pushing my boundaries. You might be wondering how I did this, so here are some helpful ideas which I implemented to embrace new friendships within my first week at school.
Firstly I considered, what is the type of person I want to be friends with? This can help you involve yourself with a group or friendships which you want to find when starting in a new environment. Even in a small school or college, there will always be someone you will get along with, even if at the start it doesn’t feel that way.
Secondly, be confident when approaching new people. This can start by reaching out to the person sitting next to you in class, or casually asking someone for directions. These small acts can create meaningful relationships over time.
Lastly, Involve yourself in group activities, sports or even trips. These environments can help you to connect with people as they already share a common interest with you. Having a topic to talk about releases tension and allows conversations to flow naturally.
After applying these approaches to my new school, It enabled me to connect with people within my first week, which has helped my experience at school to skyrocket. However, remember this process isn’t easy, and friendships can be complicated at times. Falling out with people who were once close to you can be tricky, but by being confident in yourself and reaching out to people, making new friendships becomes a lot less daunting.
Written by: Abigail Harrison
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