You Are Who Your Friends Are, Or Are They Who You Are?

You are who your friends are.

Bad friends corrupt good morals. 

 Growing up, these are the mantras we were forced to repeat and abide by. We were encouraged to pick good friends and to stay away from bad apples. When you think about it though, if everyone says that to their kids, who is the bad kid? Which kid ruins the others? Where does the individual fit into this picture? Here is an interesting excerpt from an article on how people choose their friends:

"When you have opportunity to choose your friends, you will tend to choose people who are similar to you; there's a lot of evidence that we like similar others," says Chris Crandall, psychology professor at the University of Kansas. 

 However, we don't always have the option to find our perfect match. When they looked at people on large campuses, the friend groups tended to be more homogenous. On small campuses, where the options were not as plenty, groups tended to be more diverse.

"Two differences did stand out, though. On larger campuses, people tended to be friends with those who held many of the same beliefs; in other words, they BFF'd themselves. And on small campuses, people had more diverse friends but rated those friendships as closer."

Maybe the goal shouldn't be to avoid the "bad apples". Rather, we should select friends who can offer alternative perspectives and challenge our thought processes.

 The best thing about my college experience was the people I met and the friends I made. We all came from different backgrounds and had different ideals and values, but we created a culture that enabled open dialogue and debate.

Some say that college is an artificial experience. Living with your peers with minimal accountability and responsibility isn't "real life." Although it may not have been "real life", we really lived. And, consequently, we entered real life with real friends.