How To Make Really Great, Life-Long Friends

What I Learned From Navigating the Mysterious Problem that is Finding, Building, and Maintaining Friendships

I don’t know where I’d be without my friends. They carry me through the hard times, celebrate the good times, and give my life its music and color. They’re the first people I want to tell good news to, and the first people I turn to when something goes sour. Every day I consider myself incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such caring, considerate, wonderful people, and I think to myself, how was I so lucky to find these individuals?

I didn’t always have such a solid network of friends. When I first moved from Texas to New York, I had an incredibly hard time adjusting from the southern culture of my hometown community, to the cooler, suburban-wealthy culture in Westchester. I was too young to have social media and quickly lost contact with my friends from Texas, while unable to connect deeply with anyone in my new school. Everyone already knew everyone else and it didn’t help that I was just one of two Asians in the entire school — socially and culturally, I felt isolated.