On friendship

So, Daniel, the person who I would still consider as my best friend, is now in Bolivia for the next two years. I've known Daniel for eight years, so he's not my oldest friend (she's coming up on 23 years now), but pretty close. This got me thinking: I've almost never had a good friend for more than four or five years. Andy and my best friend from elementary school are on the borderline at about five or six years each. This seemed a bit weird to me. Despite staying in the same place for the first 22 1/2 years of my life, I couldn't manage to keep friendships for very long. Kids with parents in the military did better than I did. Why?

After elementary school, I went to the "normal" middle school that kids in my area attended. For some reason or another, most of my friends from school went to a differerent middle school that was further away, and my best friend moved to a different city with his dad. Then, after middle school, I decided to go to the high school where my mom worked instead of the one that was nearby, so once again I was in a new place with no one I knew. Throughout school, I became friendly with a lot of people, but never had more than a couple friends. Conveniently, my two best friends from high school both happened to come to JDE.

The fact that I kept going to fresh, new schools didn't help. I've always been an extreme introvert, and that made things much worse. So, finally, to my point: I'm not sure why this all happened. I mean, was I born with an inherent friendship deficiency? I never had any problems getting along with people... what was it about kindergarten through high school specifically that prevented me from being able to make friends?

For some reason, it all became really easy in college, especially starting my sophomore year. My personality and my intense fears of introducing myself to people, talking to people without being spoken to first, social events, and so forth didn't change. The only thing that comes to mind that was different was that I was living with these people now. Suddenly I have dozens of people who I would honestly consider good friends.

Now I'm off on my own, thousands of miles away from my family. I miss my family and people from my church—I mean, I've known them all my life—but not too much, and I'm not really homesick as I understand the word. However, it kills me that I'm away from my friends from college, and only AIM and IT keep me sane. It seems weird that I could miss people I've known for less than two years so much, yet not be bothered that I don't see my parents at all.

I don't know how things will work out here. There are several people here who I would consider decent friends, ranging from their late twenties to their fifties, and I like almost all of my co-workers. It's not the same, though. I lack the eloquence to explain what I feel.