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Making friends: Princeton style

Raise your hand if you ever have walked past someone you know and tried your hardest not to make eye contact — you get extra points if you made eye contact from afar, and then one or both of you whipped out your phones or suddenly pretended to be very interested in the sidewalk’s cracks.

You probably don’t feel particularly guilty about it; after all, everyone else does it too. I can’t count the number of times I have deliberately avoided someone because I did not remember his or her name, or — and this is rather interesting in hindsight­ — because I thought if he or she wanted to talk, he or she would (or should) say “hi!” first. This passivity, I would later realize, was an unnecessary and easily dismantled barrier to tapping into the amazing diversity of friends Princeton has to offer.

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I come from Ghana, a very communalistic country, full of people who are quite concerned about each other in both intangible and tangible ways. Ghanaians have a very loose definition of family, and everyone a generation above you is an “uncle” or “aunt.” Two generations back? They’re all your grandparents. My teachers in school, all the way to high school, took it a step further. I still recall them reminding us, on practically a daily basis, that they were our parents while we were at school, and that our moral and social upbringing was as much their business as it was our legal guardians’. It bears noting that in many Ghanaian languages, the term “aunt” is not applied to one’s mother’s sisters, nor “uncle” to one’s father’s brothers. They are, culturally, your mothers and fathers.

It should come as no surprise then, that in this culture, kinship ties are woven so deeply that kindness to everyone, not just strangers, is the norm. It is basically an insult to walk past someone, especially if you know them, without saying “hi.” If you do so, you must prepare for an early evening phone call from someone wondering if you two have unresolved conflicts.

And so I came to Princeton as a very friendly person, extremely eager to rebuild that community I grew up in, where even the village meanie could be pushed to a modicum of exchange with a “good morning,” and no “hi” was unaccompanied by some small talk. Initially, I was not disappointed. Everyone seemed so ready to make friends! After a short time though, things began to change. People seemed less eager to catch up, cliques began to form, and I felt behind. I would walk past other people that I knew from past experiences, neither of us acknowledging the other. Soon, my “friendships” began to fizzle and pop.

As my frustration at this grew, I did what any 19-year-old would: call my mother. She patiently listened to my ranting, and then cut me off with a question. “What,” she asked, “are you doing?” Her question left me thinking. While I was waiting for people to say hi to me and usher me into their gatherings, I never noticed my own passivity. Without the comfort of Ghana’s familiarity, I simply did not want to deal with the awkwardness of making new friends, unless they made the first step. It was then that it hit me — other people were also probably waiting for me to make that first move, too. There was an unspoken impasse.

Very few people come to Princeton with a strong set of friends. Although some are fortunate enough to have people from their high school here, for many people, myself included, being thrust into this new environment and having to deal with making friends in addition to everything else can seem daunting. The spring semester, with its reshuffle of classes and schedules, makes keeping up even harder. Yet, the contradiction inherent in this is that the very nature of Princeton makes having a social network all the more important. Such a network is important for commiseration over the arduous academic hurdles, and for the break it offers from the routine. While the university does its best to create it, through zee groups, colleges, and the ilk, nothing beats the organic nature of friendship. Even the most casual of conversations can have quite a deep impact, and that we miss these opportunities because we want to remain in our comfort zones is unfortunate.

So I decided to challenge myself and go out of my way to connect with people. I became more proactive. I started following up with friends, and making sure that schedule changes did not affect our relationships. I tried my best to make our relationship transcend our immediate shared experience — I tried to connect on a more individual level: from the mundane (who doesn’t love “Avatar: the Last Airbender”?) to the more visceral experiences that made each person who he or she is.

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And it has served me well. Princeton really is full of interesting people, rich in experiences and deep in thoughts. I know my best memories decades from now will be the moments I shared with my friends, not just my inner circle, but those I connected with through concerted efforts. What will be your best memories?

Blaykyi Kenyah is a sophomore from Sekondi, Ghana. He can be reached at bkenyah@princeton.edu.

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