I take comfort in the fact that Jesus had twelve disciples.<\/p>\n
Yes, Judas betrayed him, but the twelve we\u2019re more prone to mention are basically the original \u201csquad\u201d if you will. However, I feel that by today\u2019s standards\u2014Jesus\u2019s social life would not be considered so grand.<\/p>\n
Only twelve?<\/p>\n
That seems a bit odd for someone who can turn water into wine and feed a multitude people with a single overwhelmingly pitiful meal unfit for the average man. Yet a dozen is all he had\u2014all he actually required\u2014and at this hopefully early part in my life, I can\u2019t help but envy, yet revere all the same, his small social circle.<\/p>\n
In college, everyone wants to be friends\u2014at least that\u2019s how it seems. With that said though, I really and truly do think everyone wants to connect to someone one on one level or another. Even before I was thinking about college and was still a reticent 14 year-old, I\u2019ve heard time and time again that \u201cYou\u2019ll make lifelong friends in college!\u201d, and some days I believe this. For the most part, everyone is incredibly outgoing and willing to make conversation, and it almost seems as if there\u2019s no logical reason I can\u2019t be friends with any and everyone here. But if I were to be honest, I\u2019d say that I almost dislike the idea of that.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong.<\/p>\n
I love people\u2014I really and truly do\u2014but do I trust people? Now that\u2019s another question\u2026<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that I have an idea in my head that people only want out of a relationship what they can get out of you because I\u2019ve already been up and down and all around that street. And while I can say that I\u2019ve moved on from that travesty of a relationship, I\u2019d be lying if I said it didn\u2019t affect the way I perceive others in some way. However, that\u2019s not the complete source of my hesitancy to befriend others. If anything it was water to the plant.<\/p>\n
The chief reason behind this is simply the fact that I\u2019m not from here.<\/p>\n
I come from a place where I\u2019m understood quite well. I can say the most with the least, and I can be myself without much fear of misconstruction, and while this can be true of most anyone\u2014to a certain degree\u2014the fact that I come from Texas and not Iowa plays a large role in people\u2019s willingness to form relationships.<\/p>\n
Before I continue, however, I\u2019m not looking for fair-weather friendships\u2014something I\u2019ve never been a fan of ever since high school. I don\u2019t see the point of engaging in another person with having no real intent of following through with the relationship itself. However, I feel that people naturally have a bad habit of making abortive connections as it is, and I\u2019ve seen this play out quite a bit. Someone\u2019s friends with someone they don\u2019t even enjoy, or someone just doesn\u2019t treat someone else how that person would like to be treated\u2014but I could write a whole sermon about this, so I think I\u2019ll stop now because I\u2019m certainly no James Weldon Johnson.<\/p>\n
I only get the phantom feeling that many of the people that come to the University of Iowa already knowing a great deal of people aren\u2019t pursuing relationships with new people past what I described above. And I understand that the first semester of my first-year is only half over, but again, as long as I am a first year\u2014this blog shall chronicle (to the best of its ability) the freshman experience from start to finish.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s harder for me personally, however, is that I am an open book\u2014an open book with several big words that is. While I am open and honest, it\u2019s difficult to gauge what all I should explain to people I\u2019m starting fresh with, and because of this I do question not the value of making new connections but my capability to do so\u2014and on some levels the point of it all. I am outgoing and like to laugh, yes, but I want more out of a relationship than an exchange of gilts. Moreover, I\u2019ve been through nothing with these people. All of the good friends I can count on my hand back in Texas followed me through some incredibly complex and, at times, nightmarish moments, and to be told that I will meet people here that will rival their loyalty and support almost makes me indignant\u2014as if anyone could <\/em>be as much a friend as they have proven themselves to be\u2026<\/p>\n And then I think of Jesus\u2014who had the tiniest social circle imaginable by a 21st<\/sup> century technophile like myself\u2014and naturally I can\u2019t help but be jealous of him in a non-Judas, I\u2019m-going-to-betray-you type way. It\u2019s just nice to know that a small circle is all you need, but to settle for the veterans in my life and undervalue the 5,000+ students here would be a disservice to not only them but myself as well which inevitably defeats the purpose of the university\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n We\u2019re supposed to meet new people and make new friends\u2014\u201clifelong friends\u201d\u2014and it\u2019s easy to go the Jesus route and proclaim that what I have is all I need, especially for someone like me. However, where things stand now, I do believe there are potential relationships here that are worth it. I just don\u2019t know which ones yet, which I feel is natural(ly unnerving). Or maybe it\u2019s simply a feeble hope I\u2019m holding out for someone to justify and confirm?<\/p>\n Nevertheless, I believe everyone will go through this How-Many-Friends-Would-Jesus-Have dilemma, whether they\u2019re aware of it or not, when they begin to consider the value of their relationships\u2014even the Iowans who come here with their best friends and 95% of their graduating class. This social crisis of biblical proportions is only happening to me now because I came knowing and, in some ways, trusting no one.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a brave boy, though. I\u2019m used to discomfort and putting myself out there. (Boy do I have a lot of stories about that\u2026) And while I can\u2019t say the same for everyone, I believe I\u2019ll be fine in the end ( I take comfort in the fact that Jesus had twelve disciples. Yes, Judas betrayed him, but the twelve we\u2019re more prone to mention are basically the original \u201csquad\u201d if you will. However, I feel that by today\u2019s standards\u2014Jesus\u2019s social life would not be considered so grand. Only twelve? That seems a bit odd for someone … Continue reading H-M-F-W-J-H<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campuslife","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nat least that\u2019s the hope<\/del>) even if I do choose to defy the Jesus paradigm…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"