Sports, parties, drugs. When some of you look back on your high school experience, these will come to mind as what you will remember, but for me, I will remember something completely different. I know this may come off as being uncool or somewhat unmanly, but I think that few people really have personal conservations with their friends, and prior to this year I was one of the worst offenders of this.  
Before this summer, I wasn’t an overly deep person and didn’t really analyze anything or talk about anything of substance with my friends.  At that point, I decided I wanted to change.  I wanted to have friendships that went beyond the ability to party, drink, watch television and play video games.  I wanted more genuine friendships.  Not that I didn’t enjoy and cherish just chilling and relaxing, but I wanted more.  

I don’t think I’m alone in that regard.  Whether right or wrong, I have the perception that the vast majority of CHS students want more genuine friendships too.  However in society today, people have the desire to conform and few care about what is actually being said.
The reasons why people have this fear of having genuine friendships are vast and varied.  Some people feel insecure about themselves as it can make them look weaker and be perceived as uncool or feminine.  But I think the most probable reason why people are often hesitant to share things about themselves, even to best friends, is that the more others know about us, the more can be used against us.  Obviously there are your most loyal true friends, but not everyone is going to keep a secret all of the time.  

However, the benefits of having real personal conversations greatly outweigh the potential negatives.  When having a serious and personal conversations with a friend, you learn new things about people, but more importantly you learn more things about yourself, which oftentimes leads to becoming more enlightened about yourself, others and society.  

 When you talk it out with a good friend, you will most likely have a different outlook on a situation or even life in general.  At times it can feel like you are “insiders on life.”

There is so much more to being friends than just sharing a common interest of talking about sports, fashion or who attended what party, and I know that when I think back to my high school days, I won’t remember some party or lunch with my friends when we talked about the McNabb trade.

I will however, remember driving my friend home from school and spending two hours in his driveway talking; having a personal and intellectual conversation with two friends at my favorite Peruvian place, and going to a basketball game with friends and looking at the scoreboard in the first quarter, only to not look up again until the third quarter because the conversation was significant and enjoyable.  
Then there was the time where I helped a friend out at 1 a.m. with a college application that was due the next day, and since we didn’t finish, he came over the next day to finalize. But my absolute favorite memory was having three friends come over at 7 p.m. to just chill on my deck and not leave utill 2:30 a.m, all the while just talking, without any need for drugs or television. These are the memories that I will cherish and look back on.  

What I’ve learned is that relationships like the ones I’ve been able to acquire do not happen overnight.  They take time to formulate, and unfortunately, they may never occur because your friends will be too insecure and unwilling to take the chance of having a deeper, more meaningful friendship.