When I was just a little girl, I dreamed of having everything. I dreamed of having a white castle- looking mansion, with puppies running around and a slide from my dream bedroom to the downstairs area. As a few years passed by and I started transitioning into high school, I wanted more things like nice cars, nice clothes, a lot of friends, etc. These are all examples of things I “really wanted” but didn’t need at all.

The thing I wanted most growing up was a lot of friends and to have this sort of popularity to feel superior. I’m at a point where I can admit that without getting embarrassed, as most high school girls especially probably wanted the same thing. I come from a city just north of Minneapolis and I graduated with around 700 students in my class. Our high school and city was fairly big, making it hard for many people to find their “group” of friends. I’d say that I had a pretty good high school experience; I had one friend group that consisted of 25-28 people, we would celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas together and we were all pretty close. We still get together on holidays and in the summertime, as it has been a tradition for us for a while now. The thing that was hard for me to understand was how I had all these “friends” in this group but wasn’t super close with every single person. The thing that was hardest for me to understand was that it wasn’t about how many friends I had but it was more about how good of friends they were.

I’d say I’m a social person, I love meeting new people and making friends. It was pretty clear that I didn’t connect very well with some of the people in this high school group of friends but I never knew why. None of these people did anything to hurt me and I didn’t do anything to hurt them either, so I caught myself asking this question a lot. I asked questions like, “why don’t these girls want to hang out with me?” or “what should I do to be better so that this person will like me?” The thing is, I had it all wrong this entire time; I was asking all the wrong questions to myself. I was constantly worried about what people thought of me and why I wasn’t close to everyone but that’s not how it goes anymore. During my freshman year of college, I had finally
figured it out.

Everyone says that quality is greater than quantity, but what does that mean exactly? After experiencing college for the first time, I have realized that I have a very select few close friends I can go to for anything and I’m completely okay with it. Being friends with every single person you meet or encounter would be extremely difficult because it doesn’t allow enough room to get
close with everyone. I have some people in my life who I can consider some of my best friends and I also have people in my life who I don’t consider my best friends but they’re the people I still love to be around. The reason why I have a few best friends is because I’ve actually taken the time to get to know these people and they’ve taken the time to get to know me. It’s been a
long time for us to get to know each other and let me just tell you, you don’t have that kind of time for everyone.

So here is my advice to you. Stop worrying about the amount of friends you have, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have a select few people who can be trusted, who give you love, who care for you, and who trusts you as well. It’s all about quality; how good these people in your life treat you, rather than the number of people in your life who may treat you well, but not as well as you deserve to be treated. Think wisely, because quality will always outweigh quantity.