The great thing about hometown friends is that most, if not all people have experience with these types of friends. This plentiful amount of people offer great sources concerning the hometown friends community. However, the most intriguing of the bunch would be opinion writer Elia Rathore, and bloggers, Mary Ochs and Gabrielle LaFrank. These writers have unique perspectives on the community and have been invaluable sources in my research.
The freshness of the college experience gives many people tunnel vision when it comes to relationships away from college. People don’t want to forget about their friends that they had for most of their lives, it’s just as time moves forward, so does our lives. University of Dakota student Mary Ochs illustrates this point and exemplifies how one could fix it. Mary Ochs suggests that hometown friends should be at the forefront, and one should do anything to stay connected to the people back home. This is ultimately true, hometown friends are undoubtedly wonderful. They have known you since you were a child, and might arguably know you better than you know yourself. Time is a catalyst for all relationships. When a certain milestone has been reached, another milestone is created within the friendship.
Ochs, as stated before, didn’t adhere to her own advice at first. During her first year, she was engulfed with college living and only stayed in touch with a few of her closest confidants from her hometown. Only through one of the people she kept in touch with enlightened her with the importance of the relationships of hometown friends.
Ochs asserted that one should always try rekindling the relationship with all of your old friends, even those who you haven’t spoken to for the longest time. She repeatedly voices the importance of hometown friends but fails to acknowledge the new ones she made in college. Ochs claims that hometown friends are important, which they are, but constantly attending to all of your hometown friends can be quite laborious. She refuses to recognize the importance of the new relationships you formed in college. People should definitely stay connected to hometown friends but do so with a handful, not the entire town.
There were not that many articles disputing the opinion that hometown friends were a key part of many people's lives. However, the op-ed from the NY times written by Elia Rathore was the diamond in the rough. Rathore has a unique outlook on life, this is due to her moving from country to country, not cementing herself into something resembling a hometown. Rathore argues that the absence of a hometown while growing up didn’t have a negative influence on her life. She admits that not having a hometown definitely shaped her differently from others who did have one, but these were only a small portion of her character. It is obvious that people grow up and live great lives even if they didn’t have a typical hometown growing up. However, there are definitely some downsides of not having a hometown, and hometown friends during childhood and through adulthood.
Throughout the article, Rathore notices the nuances between herself and others who had a more traditional life. From her not decorating her room throughout her life to not having at least that one friend who literally knew every single thing about you. The reason why she didn’t as she explained it, “I’ve never decorated my bedroom before. For me, the act of adorning a room with little trinkets, putting up posters, and all the things associated with making a place my own always seemed futile”. I think this shows an interesting caveat into the mindset of someone who doesn’t have a single place to call home. They are ready to jump ship whenever and don’t have an extremely lasting relationship of where they are and live in the current moment.
Even though my hometown is just under 200 miles away from Boston, in many ways I view where I live here in Boston as my second home. Even though I have been here for 6 weeks or so, I accepted Boston and accepted where I live as an extension of myself. Someone without a hometown could not form this type of lifestyle, Rathore admitted to this throughout her piece. In the broad sense, I do agree with the sentiments of Rathore, however under a microscope that is where the real dissimilarities become apparent.
Time is not just a word, it’s a force, a force of binding or separation. As days turn into months which turn into years, hometown friends know all too well what time can do to their old friendships. Blogger Gabrielle LaFrank portrays what time can do to hometown friends, and how in a way it means nothing. LaFrank contends that although that time and distance get in the way of the relationships of hometown friends, they are never truly over.
Though there haven't been years separating when I last saw the bulk of my hometown friends, I know that my hometown friends are friends for life. As LaFrank claims, “you'll reconnect with a friend and find you can begin again from exactly where you left off, like nothing has changed.” When I went home for a weekend 2 weeks ago, it has been some time since I last spoke to members of my community face to face. The second I walked through the door, it was like nothing changed, we laugh at the same jokes, we reminisce on old memories, and we had a great time.
These friends are more than friends, they are family. Elia Rathore, Mary Ochs, and Gabrielle LaFrank help reconcile this point in either support or opposition. Hometown friends are unquestionably important to ourselves, and others and have helped mold us into who we are today. Even with the absence of a hometown and hometown friends, that molded you as well. One should always try to stay connected to hometown friends, but also be aware that who is in your life right now is also important.