Friend Following

Here is another of my Peer Tutoring Journals from the previous school year.  The following story was written as a result to a prompt and may or may not be base on actual events.  I will allow you to decide yourself.

My friends and I shrieked with laughter as we walked through the aisles of Walmart.  We compared prices briefly, selected the "necessary" items and headed to the checkout with our arms stuffed full of toilet paper.It was the night we had been planning on for weeks.  One of my school's teachers was going to wake up to a surprise the next morning.

The funniest part about this whole situation was probably not the fact I was going teepeeing.  It was the fact that I had never even had the teacher that my friends had selected.  Why did I even want to go?  Probably, and I know this is cliché, because "everyone else was doing it."

I have noticed that this is something that is said quite frequently.  As students we face many temptations, especially when we are "hanging out" with our friends.  Most of us just want to fit in and have friends; however, sometimes this comes with a price.  Most of the time everyone around us is taking part in the same activity making us want to do the same.  Because of this, I think that dealing with loneliness is a huge problem.  Many people are never taught how to handle feeling lonely, and it can be very painful.  Humans are designed to be with other people (This goes back to the creation of Eve as a companion to Adam in the Garden of Eden), so when we feel lonely it creates a void in our lives.  Most of us will do anything to fill this void. Become physically intimate with someone. Take drugs.  Drink alcohol.  Choose a popular career choice.  Say degrading things about themselves to get people to notice them.

This is a huge problem, because everyone does it, not just teenagers.  With adults it can be different activities, but they're still pressured into doing it by their peers.  If we can teach people that it's okay to walk away from a situation that would help tremendously.  If we can show people that there are other people who will still like them for who they are, it would be incredible.  But above everything else, if the world would learn to accept people for themselves, that would solve many problems.