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Friendships are come and go, as you grow, but along the way, people find the most treasurable ones. They find someone they can call their “best friend”, someone they feel comfortable to be themselves around. They’re someone who people want to share anything and everything with. The ones who are there for each other in the middle of the night, when they need to talk. The ones who put their friends before themselves. The ones who feel super close, like unbiological siblings.
With social media and technology, it’s really easy to keep in touch, but true friendship takes much more than just liking each other’s post, or sending a few texts occasionally. We come to know countless people over the years, and it’s impossible to be close, best friends with everybody. True friendship takes effort to keep growing and thriving. With our busy lives, keeping up friendships can take a lot of work and time. We all know and see super close, peas-in-a-pod besties. So, how do they do it? The treasurable friendships would last a lifetime, but most friendships that you make in your life won’t last long. About 50% of adolescent friendships don’t hold into the next school year. A recent study conducted on hundreds of 7th graders showed that about 25% of friendships survived into the next year, and only 1% by their senior year in high school. Though that precious 1% is still there because of the many factors that psychologist discover supports an amicable friendship. Proximity Presses People Close My psychology teacher told me that one factor is proximity. It’s much easier to keep up a friendship if people are constantly around each other. With distance decay, the farther apart people are, the harder it is to maintain communication and a strong friendship. In the study of social psychology, there’s the theory of the mere exposure effect, that states that the more “exposed” people are to others, the more they are around someone, the more they’ll grow to eventually like them. The mere exposure effect has definitely worked on best friends at Lakeville North. All of the best friends interviewed from freshman to senior class, all say that they see a whole lot of each other, whether it be because of the multiple classes together, same interest, and/or close houses. They say that they text everyday, but there’s no need to really hang out because they’re spending all their time together anyway, with school and activities. Similarity Sticks Friends Together Another factor that pulls people together is things they have in common. There’s an old saying “opposite attracts”, but psychology proves that we like people who are more similar than different to us. It when friends are different in gender, school ability, and social status, that a friendship is likely to not stand against the test of time. Junior best friends, Logan Truman and Sam Gellhorn, share a similar passion for band, particularly trombones, and both take interest in technology and programming. They’re besties who constantly hang out, and have made a promise to stay in touch after they graduate, and keep their friendship going strong. When asked what makes their friendship strong, best friend pairs responded with variety of answers, including sharing similar activities (like band or theatre), love for god, being able to read each other’s mind, and that the presence of each other makes them happy. “I walked into first hour, and made eye contact with Aaron, then doubled over laughing without having to say a word,” said Chloe, “because his presence is just so goofy, and brings me so much happiness.” Chloe Mutebi and Aaron Panaligan are two sophomore best friends that use to not like each other, but grew on each other because of the time spent together with similar classes, and same activities after school. Personal Support System Psychologists believe that we like friends because of who they are, and how they support who we are. Best friends are always there for each other, whenever they need it. They embrace us and love us for who we are. Braasch said, “People are always telling me to be quiet, and that I’m too loud, but Andrea embraces it, and is loud with me.” Many of the students interviewed says that they wouldn’t know what to do if they didn’t have a best friend in their life to support and keep them sane, and the adults agree. Kristin Shoemaker, parent of two lifelong best friends who have gone on multiple vacations together since they were little, said “As a parent, it’s important to know that my daughter has that [support], to have someone in her life that sees the best in her- it’s totally a gift.” Shoemaker has one neighbor that has been her been best friend from elementary to high school, and now their families lives only 40 minutes away from each other. She said that throughout her life, she has been so grateful to have that friend to anchor her when bad peer pressure became hard to deal with, and keeps her self-aware, because she was more likely listen to her peer than her parents when they called her out on it. She believes that friends see your potential, and push you to it. Friendship should definitely be a priority in life. Miller said “Hannah puts up with me, and we always have each other to lean on through tough times.” Grillo agreed to that, saying that she’s “like a boyfriend” and they call each other every night just to say ‘goodnight’. Same with two senior best friends, Max Dugan and Rob Frederick, who met on a mission trip two years ago, and have been inseparable ever since. They treasure the time they spent together very much, especially since they’re graduating soon. Frederick said that they always talk about “deep life talks and stupid convos on life”, along with “cats” and “entertainment”. That’s also backed up by science that proves people who have a network of friends, or just someone to go to in difficult times, suffer from less stress, have stronger defenses, and live longer. Friends encourage good habits, chase away depression, and cause satisfaction, pleasure, and happiness in each other’s lives. In our society, it’s so easy to put our own self interest ahead of another, with all the advertising to get us to buy things with “take a break, you deserve more” kind of sayings. Friendship is only rich when you choose to put others first, because the best part comes when you choose to listen. “We’re all looking to be happy,” said Shoemaker, “and friendship is what can give us real wholeness in life.” This blog was written by anonymous. If you are interested in blogging for FIRST Ladies, click here to sign up on the schedule.
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For two years, I was on an all girls FLL team, and then spent another two years on a co-ed FTC team, so I have experienced both kinds. The dynamic of both is drastically different, but it just depends on the kind of person to say which one they like best. Personally, I like coed teams better, but that’s just my preference, and don’t get me wrong, my years on the all girls team were great. In terms of being a lady in STEM, there are definately pros and cons to both.
All girls/boys teams: The pro of being on an all girls teams is it’s super empowering and way easier to work with, since everyone pretty much thinks the same way. Most likely, it’ll be a group of friends who have similar interests, and probably even similar personalities. There’s not much conflict since everyone works and thinks very similarily. Also, “all girls” team is a huge buzz word that people love to hear. We didn’t need to do much fundrasing in FLL, but I’ve heard that having that buzz word makes sponsorships and getting promo easier. For example, our team was interviewed at the World Championships just because we were an all-girls team. The cons to being an all girls/boys team are missing out on that diversity and learning to be open minded to something different. Co-ed teams: On the other hand, the pro of being on a co-ed team, is that you get more perspectives and more different ideas, since boys typically have a different way of solving problems, and you get to figure out how to work well with boys, which is a vital skill in a male dominated field, and in life in general. My favorite quote is from FTC team 4924, Tuxedo Pandas, “co-ed teams are better because it teaches guys not to be jerks and girls to stand up for themselves”. I personally like co-ed teams better because they are more of a challenge and there’s so much more to learn, in my experience. Learning how to work well with the opposite gender is very valuable, and definately something we can take throughout life. Though we loveeeeeee the boys on our team, I’m not going to lie, working with them really expanded my horizons. We had to learn to collaborate on ideas, and try to see each other’s point of views, and get over the gender sterotypes. It’s really interesting hearing what they have to say. This blog was written by anonymous. If you are interested in blogging for FIRST Ladies, click here to sign up on the schedule. There is a saying that I’ve heard recently that I find perplexing.
“You can’t be what you can’t see.” It’s been used to explain why girls need to see female engineers and programmers, and people of color need to see that an African American can be president. While I get the sentiment, I don’t completely agree with the statement. If you have to “see it to be it”, how could Sally Ride have become an astronaut? How could Sandra Day O’Connor become a Supreme Court Justice? How could Oprah become...well...Oprah? When I was a girl trying to decide what I was going to be when I grew up, I thought I’d be an architect or engineer. I liked math and science and art, my grades were good, and I knew if I wanted to leave my hometown, I needed a degree and a viable career. My high school guidance counselor recommended I check out a secretarial school in FL. (I believe I may have coined the expression WTF back then, although only in my head. It was a Catholic school after all.) After ignoring her, I decided on a 3/2 Engineering program. I took Freshman Physics, fell in love with learning how things worked, and decided on a degree in Physics. I was, like a lot of girls in STEM in the 1980’s, the only girl in many of my classes. How could I be what I couldn’t see? I could because of a small group of people who came alongside me and encouraged me. I had two male friends in my classes who did not treat me differently. They inspired me, they built me up, they helped me when I needed it. They made me believe that I could accomplish anything. I had professors who made time for me, who mentored me, who encouraged me to stretch beyond what I thought myself capable of. I didn’t have a roadmap or a female role model. I had people telling me I could do it. That is why, when I coach FLL, I encourage every kid on the team (especially the girls) to try building a robot or an attachment, and to write a little code. I’ve found that when I coach mixed gender teams, the girls tend to gravitate to the research project and leave the robot design, building, and programming to the boys. Instead, I make sure that the entire team gets to experience all parts of FLL. You never know where a child will find his or her passion and instead of assuming anything based on gender (hello secretarial school), I choose encouragement. Ironically, in writing this I realize that I did become what I saw - I teach, I mentor, I encourage. Whether you are a coach, mentor, or a team member, I hope you do the same for all of the girls and boys on your team. You never know who might be the next Mae Jemison, the next Laurie Garrett, the next Crystal Huynh, Rachel Hunter, or Erin Mitchell. But you can help them get there. Be encouraging. It’s a beautiful thing. Maureen Carrigan FIRST coach and parent This blog was written by Maureen Carrigan, parent of FIRST team members and FLL Coach. If you are interested in blogging for FIRST Ladies, click here to sign up on the schedule. The way our society is structured, it places too much values on materialistic things, rather than deep, intimate relationships. And I’ve had many experiences, where I find this to ring true. First, in English class, we read books like The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men, which were both about how the American Dream is unachievable. Characters in both stories were so obsessed with materialistic things, and wealth, that they sacrificed their relationship and well-being of themselves and others to attain that, and let’s just say, things did not end well for these characters. I also took AP Psychology last year, and I learned a lot about how important the human need is to feel belonged, and the importance of touch/comfort of a mother. In AP Psych, we watched a documentary on Harlow’s monkey experiment, with live footage of the experiment, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see how scared the baby monkeys were, and how tight they clung onto their cloth mothers.
I once saw a speech on “solitary confinement”, and one things that stuck with me is that it’s one of the cruelest punishment there is. Humans are social creatures, so locking them in a small confined area with no human contact is brutal and the damage it does to their mental/physical health is beyond horrible. And the ironic things is, the way that our society works, many of us choose to confide and isolate ourselves. People would rather spend time watching TV in their rooms than hanging out with their friends and families. Also, I’ve seen/read a bit on psychological disorders and suicide- I’ve read Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock (which is about a boy who wants to commit a school shooting and kill the guy who bullied him, then commit suicide) and Thirteen Reasons Why (which is about a girl who tells the story behind why she commits suicide in the form of cassette tapes for people to listen after she has died) to name a few. Through these stories, it’s crystal clear how important connecting to people and building strong relationships are. Suicide is an extreme example, but the way that society lets us isolate ourselves, and valuing ourselves more than others (with commercials saying things like “you deserve it”), our society has lost its ability to connect with people and work towards a greater good, and that’s so dangerous. It’s important to love yourself, but let’s not forget to love other people in the process too. Friendships and relationship are meaningful when the two people are willing to put each other first. The income gap makes it so easy to fuel power hungry people and make the top climb higher, while the bottom stays at the bottom. We learned this in APUSH, where since African Americans have the slavery ancestry, they weren’t allowed to read, and so many of their descendants today still don’t. That’s so unfair, and goes completely against the mentality of working as a group, when we’re leaving so many people in need of help behind. I remember reading Dear America: The Fences Between Us and The Invisible Thread (which are both about the Japanese internment camps during WWII), and both girls talked about how even though their conditions were awful, they became oh-so-close with the other people there, and grew stronger because of the relationships and the warmth it brought out in people. Another instance is, when during 9/11, when passengers of flight 93 came together to take down the terrorists on their plane, and in turn saved so many lives. The power of a community and feeling of belonging is absolutely empowering, and something that is rare in our society. Relating back to high school, it’s why students have cliques and are sometimes exclusive because they want to feel like they belong and that they have power. This also reminds me of an article I read on the KKK, where it’s super ironic that the most people joined KKK because they wanted to be part of a group- to feel like they belonged, yet they made the Africans Americans of that time feel the opposite. People desperately need to feel like they are accepted and belonged to a group, and when our society doesn’t give them that, it leads to nasty outcomes of high suicide rates and mental illness that drives people to harm others, or do crazy things. While I understand that some mental illnesses are genetic, some events can trigger mental illnesses, like PTSD. Those examples are extreme, but it’s not healthy to feel so isolated, and to not have connections or someone to talk to. In an article I read, one in ten people feel that they don’t have a close friend, and 43% say that they don’t have friends at school or work. I think the biggest part of trying to bring change is to bring awareness first. If we want to change our society, it has to start with people being aware that this is a problem. Even though our little, white suburban is about as far from war as it can get, the effect of affluence and technology is oh-so prevalent. It’s so disheartening to walk into a restaurant and see the whole family on their phones instead of talking to each other. With busy activities, and easy access to entertainment, kids no longer spend quality time with their families, or choose to eat dinner in front of the TV. Also, when I babysit for my neighbors I always try to get them playing outside, but it absolutely shocks me when they keep asking to go back home or reach for their iPads. The ironic thing is the internet seems to keep us connected with social media, but it’s actually disconnecting us from reality. For example, with photoshop and filters, we can make ourselves and our lives online as far from the truth as we would like it to be. I remember reading a memoir about a famous Minnesota YouTuber, A Work In Progress, who mentions this game he plays with his friends called “all phones in the center of the table”, and the first person who reaches for their phone has to pay for dinner. I think that’s so clever and awesome, and I would love to play that game. There are definitely people out there worth ignoring your phone for. Psychologist have named this phone addiction “nomophobia”, since a study in 2014 in Britian found that 53% of people have trembling anxiety if they lose their phone, or if they don’t have network coverage. Another thing I’ve noticed in our little, affluent suburban, completely attests to the fact that we value our personal gains above the group effort. For example, when our school does fundraisers or donations (like book drives, food drives, Pennies for Patients, etc), most people don’t even bother to bring in anything, even though they have more than enough money to spare. They would rather spend their money on another article of clothing, even though they already have a whole closet full that they barely even wear, when people who are dying of cancer, or starving in Africa need the money more! The low turnout rate, is so mind blowing, when our community has more than enough money to spare. I understand why kids who are tight on money can’t contribute, but kids who flaunt around in designer jeans, need to step it up. That’s the problem with our society- people with a high level of comfort and affluence can’t relate to the people who are in need to help, and therefore don’t extend a hand out to help. If we don’t start acting like a group, and making sacrifices for each other (even if it’s as little as giving some personal money to donate), we will never be able to truly fix this problem. This blog was written by anonymous. If you are interested in blogging for FIRST Ladies, click here to sign up on the schedule. |
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