Introduction
Friendship and relationship building are essential concepts that determine a person’s ability to socialize and network with others. Throughout my childhood, I never learned how to make and keep friends and never appreciated the value of having good relationships with those around me. My parents were not actively involved in my upbringing, and I was forced to stay with my grandparents in the remote areas of Texas. My caregivers solely focused on the provision of basic needs and were never concerned about how I socialized with friends, neighbors, and other students in school. My social skills were not warm and in most cases, I shied away from making new friends and interacting in class. I was often referred to as an introvert due to my poor socialization skills. My life changed during my high school life when I met a friend who made me understand the meaning of friendships and relationships
The Life-Changing Process
My learning journey at the elementary level was characterized by withdrawal from other students, shyness, and inability to make friends. I would envy how other students would comfortably make friends and have solid connections with each other. My teacher would try to forcibly pair me up with the proactive class members, but I would always find a way to detach from them. While at home, my grandparents rarely asked who my friends were as they were busy with farm work. There was no need to worry about walking home or to school alone since the school bus ferried students daily. For such reasons, my grandparents never knew whether I had friends or not. During weekends and holidays, I would lock myself in my room to do my homework or play with marbles. Excitement and worry would often set in coupled with loneliness and nervousness. In most cases, I reassured myself that I would learn how to socialize when I got to secondary school. At times, I even thought that this was a topic to be taught at a higher education level.
Years passed and I soon enrolled for secondary education at Carnegie Vanguard High School. In the preliminary stages of high school, I tried to make a few friends but later lost interest after they realized that I had very little to talk about and how boring my previous life was. It did not take long before Chris came to my rescue and asked to be my friend. This was a huge relief since it lessened the burden of me trying to desperately make friends. Chris was vocal, and confident, and participated in most of the sporting activities. His top-notch socialization skills made him connect with virtually everyone and was the teachers’ favorite. On one occasion, he asked why I found it hard to relate with other students. I had no explanation for my condition, but I was happy that I had someone to call a friend. As time went by, our friendship grew fonder and without realizing it, we already knew each other’s favorite games, food, colors, and school interests. My friendship relationship with Chris piqued my interest in learning how to make friends and how to maintain such relationships.
The human ability to socialize is informed and influenced by various sociological aspects. For instance, my childhood inability to make friends and inability to appreciate relationships can be best explained using the social learning theory. Proponents of this theory suggest that human beings learn their socialization skills by observing and interacting with those close to them (Chuang). I did not learn how to socialize in my early stages since I observed very little from my caregivers. In contrast, I learned how Chris made friends through my interactions with him and was able to make more friends of my own. The social environment I grew up in gave me very little exposure to how to relate with people. A change in environment made me hone my interaction skills and was able to make other friends of my own. Chris and I grew distance apart after he traveled overseas to pursue his medical career. His friendship taught me more than what my caregivers could.
The best lessons in life are those that are learned from life experiences. The sages would often say that experience is the best teacher. I learned from the gaps and mistakes of my childhood and purposed to help other people who struggle with making friends. To date, I have become a freelance trainer on how to make friends and how to maintain such relationships. While my relationship with Chris was interrupted by his relocation to overseas countries, I indirectly learned how to maintain friendships and replicated it in the now friends that I made. I have also widened my expertise in this field by enrolling in an online short course on human psychology focusing on friendships and relationship building. Last month, I helped my first client who had problems similar to mine make one friend. The client’s level of satisfaction made me proud of my efforts and milestones.
Each day I endeavor to teach anyone struggling with making friendships. Using my life experience, I can teach others that socialization and making friendships are important for a person’s well-being. Friends help in self-realization just as it was with my relationship with Chris. Such a relationship gives an individual a confidence boost and a sense of self-worth. My early childhood life was solitary and had no meaning. Making friends in high school is what changed my life perspective and made me realize that I could train others with a similar problem. In my wisdom which is based on my life experience, I would suggest that friendship improves one’s social relationships with others and makes life enjoyable. Life without friends would be toxic with very little interaction with other people’s likes and dislikes. Most importantly, it is a gradual but crucial step that needs to be taught at an early childhood development stage.
Conclusion
In conclusion, socialization and friendship-making are vital skills that every individual must have. However, these skills cannot be taught in schools like other disciplines. They require one’s ability to learn them from the surrounding environment. My inability to acquire social skills from my grandparents made me have a hard time in my junior education level. Luckily, I found solace in a friend who helped me learn how to make friends which opened me up to my self-realization journey. Today, my freelance coaching sessions are based on my life experience and the desire to help others make and maintain friends. The process is not a walk in the park as it takes time to materialize. Friendships make life more enjoyable and help people find sense in living.
Work Cited
Chuang, Szufang. “The Applications of Constructivist Learning Theory and Social Learning Theory on Adult Continuous Development.” Performance Improvement, vol. 60, no. 3, 2021, Web.