The Friendship Doctor

You're the first person whose had the same experience as me. The way you describe your high school experience is like 90% like mine. So this must mean that you are not alone in this type of experience at school. There's a you at every school I guess. I graduated from college just last spring and I will tell you that in college you have a great opportunity to make the friends you didn't in high school. However, you will learn that friends come and go, and the ones that stick around can surprise you. You never know who your real friends are until a disaster happens, o you need help, and I can't stress enough that you need to go with your gut and don't let someone make you feel like you owe them something, don't get taken advantage of. One thing is true in friendship, it's reciprocal, give and take, so don't give more than you get. Friends that are good for you don't take advantage of you. You will learn more than you did in high school about how the world works and how heartbreaking the whole thing of getting close to people and being let down by people can be. The best friend you'll ever have is yourself, and of course your family, but don't rag on yourself for not having a social life. I was studious, and genuinely enjoyed being with my family on weekends. I also was involved in sports and clubs, but like you I kept those friendships at school. Most people, I learned later, thought I was always busy, so that's why they didn't bother to ask me to go hangout. When I made myself more available and took mroe time out for friends at school and put it out there that I wanted to do something on the weekend, they perked up and included me of course. You never know unless you try. People can't read your mind you know.

I never thought of it as "part-time friends", but it makes sense. It's not neccessarily unhealthy that you don't have much of a social life, nor should you be embarrassed but I will say that when people in college ask you how you were in high school, you may feel the need to fib alittle because people can be judgemental. But remember, you are normal. You aren't some anti-social misfit, you might be shy, and you have priorities, and you let people get as close to you as you feel comfortable. You're nota pariah at your school, you might just be a mystery to most. At least you don't have to worry about a bad reputation, you are a blank slate, and you didn't need to deal with drama in high school. Maybe you were protecting yourself, so in college take more chances, don't be afraid to put yourself out there. You sound like you have a lot of potential, and would be a great friend anybody would be lucky to have.

The same thing has happened to me. We're really good friends but they will only do things by my suggestion. Most weekends I'm doing nothing.

Strange, I wondered the same thing when I was in high school. In high school I would only hang out with my friends occasionally outside of school. I think that we've actually gotten together more since we finished high school despite going to very different places for college.

-M

To offer some perspective from the flip side of your situation: I also had a good group of friends in high school that I rarely saw outside of school hours. They were perfectly willing to make plans with me. However, I was incredibly insecure and didn't think that people genuinely wanted to spend time with me, so I never asked them to. I was also afraid that my parents would be angry with me if I asked to take the car out to see a friend. Later on, I became very involved with a boyfriend and spent all of my free time seeing him. I was also involved in several extra-curricular activities, so when I had a few hours of spare time I often just wanted to be by myself and unwind.
Basically, I didn't spend a lot of time with my high school friends for several reasons, all of which had everything to do with me and nothing to do with whether or not I actually wanted to see them :)