Random comments on the 1L year: friendship

Rather than try to write some huge meandering post summing up my 1L experience, I thought I'd just throw out some random observations periodically; this is the first. How many there end up being will depend on how inspired I'm feeling.

One of the deans at my law school loves to tell us how you make the BEST FRIENDS OF YOUR LIFE in law school. These are the friends you will HAVE FOR LIFE. Treasure this time, because among your classmates will be your BEST FRIENDS, EVER.

Now, I like this dean very much, but I wish she would stop saying this, because I think she's completely wrong. I think she's confusing correlation with causation: you don't make the BEST FRIENDS OF YOUR LIFE in law school because you're in law school, but because you make really great friends at that stage in your life when this dean (and many others like her) just happened to be in law school.

What I mean is that you make (some of) the best friends of your life in your early twenties, when you still have that "Hey, you live near me? We can be BFFs!" kind of attitude left over from college, or whatever it is that just makes making friends easier. Maybe it's because many people in their early twenties are relatively uncommitted to spouses/kids/other family, have more flexible schedules and lives - I don't know exactly. I do know that in the last few years of blogging I've seen a number of people my age talk about how much harder it is to find/make friends as you get older, and guess what? Law school doesn't magically change that.

I made amazing, wonderful lifelong friends in my early/mid-twenties, just like my law school dean did. The only difference is that I was in grad school at the time, and she was in law school.

I should say that I have made friends in law school, and I like my classmates very much (I can only think of a few exceptions, and even among them, only one person truly BUGS me. I figure that's pretty good). I'm often surprised by how nice other students are, whom I've assumed to be completely uninterested in talking to me. (I make those kinds of assumptions a lot. But that's probably a subject for a different post.) My classmates are really cool people. But I have not made MY BEST FRIENDS FOR LIFE, EVER, OMG.

So I kinda wish my dean would shut up already about us all finding our BEST FRIENDS, because it makes me feel a little bit like a loser, when I think it's really just more me being a non-trad.

(I mean, some of it is just me being anti-social. I don't drink, so am not very interested in the standard early-twenties kind of parties/going to the bar, but I don't know if that would be the case for everyone my age. Moreover, I live in a different city from my school, and don't really want to hang around campus all day waiting for some kind of social event to start; I want to go home! And spend time with my husband! I'm a boring old married lady, people!

The sort of sad part is, it's not like I have a wild and crazy social life filled with people outside law school; I don't really know many people in this state besides my classmates and my husband's co-workers. I would like to make more friends, honestly. Nonetheless, it still feels like I have an actual life outside of law school, not that law school is my life, if that makes any sense, and so I do get tired of the YOU WILL BOND WITH YOUR CLASSMATES! YOU WILL LOVE EACH OTHER FOREVER!! talk.

Comments

[Feminist Avatar]

Although, I am going to guess that the law, rather like academia, is going to be a small world- so you might find as you progress the legal career ladder at a similar stage to some of your classmates, that you develop deeper friendships- because it will be them you work with, end up facing in court, sit on the bench with, etc, etc. They might not be BFFs, or whatever, but you may find in 20 years time that they end up as the people around you on the day to day, and who you catch a drink with after work, etc. The US is bigger than the UK, so perhaps this effect is more diluted, but it might surprise you.

[Anastasia]

they say the same thing about seminary. didn't happen for me--not *really*--even though I was in my early/mid twenties. Meh. Irritating.

[Susan]

I've found that it's somewhat easier to make friends with a small child in my life, although I'm struggling somewhat with making new friends in my new place. I have acquaintances, but it's taking a while to move into the good-friend stage. Some of that is age, I suspect. Having a kid definitely pushed me into different social settings and different places, and made it easier to meet people again. But moving has been socially disruptive and I'm having to figure out how to make friends all over again. You'd think that more life experience = easier time making friends, but that hasn't quite been my experience. Perhaps I'm just forgetting how long it takes, since what you're describing here resonates with my own move.

[phd me]

Sure, common experiences help to create friendships, but I agree with you: age and/or life circumstances are really the key. It's definitely harder to make and maintain real friendships as I get older. I don't think I'm any less social or friendly or intriguing now than I was 15 years ago, but people have so much to keep them occupied - husbands, children, jobs, clubs - that it's hard to break into those routines and put down roots for a meaningful friendship.

[caroline]

I like the idea that it might be too early to tell. For me, the first year of grad school didn't do it for me. But it was having a baby at the same time as another grad student that brought us together. And then the whole find a job thing, too.

I have been thinking recently about how hard it has been to make good friends in my new area. Like you, I have very nice colleagues who I meet for some department-wide functions or lunch on campus, but OMG BFFs are hard to come by. I do feel a bit lonely these days.

Interesting post! Do you think it has been harder for you to make BFFs because you are a different age from most of the students?

[Student Mum]

I think the idea of making a 'lifelong' friend is more true of the younger undergrads. I have made friends at uni but as we have all moved in different directions that friendship has evolved into a distant - keep in contact only - kind of thing. I have friends from many different times of my life, school, work, as a parent. Lifelong doesn't necessarily mean close either. I have a friend (from way back in high school who I see or hear from once every year or so but still call her a lifelong friend, in contrast I am friends with another woman who I only met a year or two ago who I see on a weekly basis. It's all relative and can't be forced.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

@Feminist Avatar: Oh, I definitely think my relationships with people from law school will grow stronger/deeper as I continue to work with them (if we stay where we are, which is the tentative plan, it's a relatively small legal community so I'll see these people a lot). I'm just not sure that's exactly what my dean was talking about (she's very clearly talking about the 3 years of law school itself).

And I do see some of the traditional-aged students doing the instant bonding, BFFs!!!! thing, which is what I think the dean was talking about. I have classmates who have paired/grouped off, so that you know they'll always be found in each other's company (and I don't mean the romantic couples). They study together, work out together, do class projects together, and party together. My life just isn't like that these days.

@Caroline, I do think being a different age makes a difference. There are quite a few of us older students, and I have noticed that we are much more likely to be found on our own rather than traveling in packs, as the younger students tend to do. (It always reassures me, actually, when I see other older students, say, sitting eating by themselves in the cafeteria!) It's not at all that I dislike the younger students, just that I'm at a different point in life than they are and less inclined to do the things that they do.

@phd me: I completely agree, because although there are a number of non-trad students who are maybe more inclined to do the kinds of things that I like to do at this stage in my life, they mostly have their own lives/families with which to do them. ;-) (Also, there seem to be many more non-trad men than women, which doesn't mean I can't be their friend, but makes things like picking up and going shopping a little less likely. :-P)

Boring example: because I live 45 mins - 1 hr. from campus, I tend to get up really early to beat the morning rush hour, then study on campus for an hour or so before classes start. When classes are done for the day, I tend to take off right away, so I don't get caught in the afternoon rush hour, and so I can settle in to study wherever it is I'm studying for the day (library/coffeeshop/home). I try to get my work done in the afternoons, because I know that at dinner/after I'm going to want to hang out with my husband, who's been working all day and wants to relax in the evenings too, and because since I get up at 5 am to get to campus early, I'm too sleepy to get much schoolwork done after 8 pm anyway. And I try to be in bed by 9-10 pm. I think many of my traditional-aged classmates take off after class to spend their afternoons doing non-studying stuff, then return to campus after dinner to study much of the night. So I just don't even encounter the trad-aged students very much except in class.

Which isn't to say, oh poor me, no one likes me, they're so MEAN!!! I certainly *could* rearrange my schedule so I'm on campus more when my classmates are. I just don't want to. ;-) (And I will be the first to admit that I'm not very good about going to the "official" class social events, since they're usually in the evening and semi-revolve around drinking, and I just can't be fussed.)

So my post shouldn't be read as, Hey, truth-in-advertising, WHERE ARE MY FRIENDS??? Just a little comment on how expectations of the law school experience tend to be based on traditional students' lives.

[Susan]

I think the generational piece is key. I've moved several times since grad school. When I took my first job, there was a group of untenured types who hung out together. But since then I've found it hard. Everyone already has a life, activities, friends, etc. You have to be placed in an existing framework -- it's not like "We're right out of college, what does it mean to be a grown up". I've noticed that friends who have children do get connected to other parents, and have lots of friends who are parents of other children.

[lifexhistory]

A good friend of mine went through law school and graduated about a year ago. I saw her last week and she said: lawyers are @$$holes. She's only friends with 1 or 2 ppl she knew in law school.

[life_of_a_fool]

interesting posts, and comments, and I agree with the life cycle/style/age comments and the length of time to actually develop these long-standing professional relationships.

However, I love this: "Hey, truth-in-advertising, WHERE ARE MY FRIENDS???" Ha. Not what you're talking about here, but a worthy topic anyway. :)

[New Kid on the Hallway]

lifexhistory, I am lucky that my law school seems to have a very low percentage of @$$holes and consciously cultivates the kinder, gentler kind of lawyer. But my sense is it's unusual! (And if your friend went to your current school's law school, well, I think it's a little different from mine!)

l_o_a_f, I know where my friends are - sadly, scattered across the country/globe, and I communicate them via electrons! I wish they were closer by!