I'm nineteen now. I've finally moved to another city, away from my family, to explore life on my own. College is fun, but what's more fun is the hostel. Boys' hostel is a different world altogether. Imagine eleven or twelve boys comfortably chilling in a room that can hardly accommodate three. Everyone is your friend here, even the ones you've never spoken to personally. I'm a very introverted, supposedly "boring" person, so I never thought I'd be part of such a vibrant, crazy group — eleven boys who can do anything for the sake of fun. There's never a dull moment. I've heard more abuses in a single hour here than in my whole life. From late-night jamming sessions to UNO games that stretch into entire evenings, it's all loud, messy, and alive. I love their company, and hopefully they like mine too.
But the funny thing is: the more time I spend with my new friends, the more I think of my old ones. My phone still pings with texts:
"How's college?"
"Are you enjoying?"
"Made a girlfriend yet?"
Their silly concerns make me smile. As days pass, I start valuing those old friendships more. The new ones are great, but the old ones feel like home in a different way.
Let me take you back....
I'm the youngest of three, with two elder sisters. No partner in crime at home, so friends became my brothers. In school I was the topper — extroverted, confident. Even the shyest girls would talk to me because I had that easy, comforting energy. I had a big circle. After school I'd rush to another gang of colony friends to play cricket until the sun set. Life was noisy and fun.
Then came lockdown in class 9. Schools shut, online classes and online exams became the new normal. When we finally went back, something in me had shifted. From an extroverted, vibrant boy, I'd become calm, composed, introverted. My wide circle shrank to just two or three close friends I thought were my best friends.
I topped my school in class 10 with 96 percent and chose the JEE path, but not the usual coaching-centre grind. I studied online, enrolled in a dummy school, and only went for final exams once or twice a year. My days ran from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. online lectures, then homework, then self-study. I barely stepped out. The hangouts with my two school buddies became rarer, even though they too were preparing for the same exam. They started meeting each other more; I often said no to plans. Slowly I drifted away.
In the middle of class 12, I tried to mend things. I put my ego aside and reached out, but nothing changed. They'd already moved on. I felt like a loser for even trying. That's the sting of losing friends — you realise the other side has stopped fighting for the bond. It taught me an ugly lesson: you're only someone's best friend as long as you show up daily, hang out regularly, create memories constantly. If you can't, you're replaced.
That was my mindset until I looked closer at my three real friends — Ansh, Shreyansh, and Bibhu — my childhood colony gang. We've played cricket together for a decade. At first it was a larger group of five or six; over the years it became just us four. We didn't need big adventures to feel alive. We'd sit at Bibhu's shop all afternoon doing nothing but talking and laughing. We'd go out together even for the tiniest errand — someone needed to buy a can of cooking oil? All four of us went. Not because the task required four people, but because we loved being in each other's company.
We're completely different people.
I'm the sports-loving, study-focused one.
Shreyansh is the absolute cricket maniac — call him any time of day and he's ready to play.
Bibhu has more family restrictions but he's the glue, always happy to join any game, his home our headquarters for every bit of craziness.
Ansh is the confident extrovert with friends everywhere.
I often stayed home studying, so I had little knowledge of the world outside. Shreyansh and Ansh, on the other hand, knew every street, every shop, every shortcut. During our preparation years, we barely played — maybe once or twice a month. But that didn't mean we only met that much. We'd call each other for nothing, just to step out for tea before my next online class. They'd make small plans around my schedule to include me somehow. I undervalued it then. Now I see how precious it was.
We never had big fights with rival colonies, no dramatic stories. Individually, we're probably the four most boring people on earth. But together we can spend a whole day laughing at absurd things. They're the reason my depressing JEE prep years had light in them. They're the people who never got offended, who took my sarcasm and my silence and came back the next day anyway. Even now, miles apart, they call one by one on different days to check if I'm fitting in, if I've found a cricket ground nearby, if I'm coming back for the festival. And of course, if I've made a girlfriend yet.
Looking back, I see it clearly. The two school friends drifted because I couldn't give them my presence every day. These three stayed even when I had nothing to give. That's the difference. Friendship isn't about who laughs the loudest with you in the moment; it's about who quietly stays when you don't have much to offer in return.
Here's what I've learned at nineteen, standing on the thin bridge between yesterday and adulthood:
Best friends are not the faces you see every day,
but the souls who stay even when you disappear.
They don't demand your presence in every adventure;
they weave small moments that pull you back into the circle.
They're not only the ones who make you laugh the loudest;
they're the ones who let you breathe the deepest.
They hold your stories without judgement,
keep your silences safe,
and make even the dull parts of your life feel like chapters worth reading.
That's true friendship for me.
And hence no matter where I be in the next phase of my life- rich, poor, successful, failure- I'll always have a seperate reserved space for them in my heart.