To Socialize or Not to Socialize?

My Mother has recently decided to try to get me to obtain some phone numbers of my 'friends' so that we can hang out after school and stuff. This is all fine and well, but it has brought me to the realization that I don't actually really have any friends. I mean, there are some people who I know who I enjoy being in their company, but there's really nobody who I can always count on to always want to spend time with me. To some of you, this might sound pretty lonely, but to me it's just how I live my life, and it's actually not as lonely as you might think, mostly because I spend so much time with my family and church friends outside of school.

All things being equal, however, an assignment in my English class today has provided me with some new insights I thought I would share with you. The assignment was that we were supposed to decide whether or not our school deserves its clique-free reputation, and then to provide an example to illustrate the point. I chose to stand by our school's reputation, and provided the type of example required by the assignment, at which point I thought the matter over and done with. To my surprise, my English teacher decided that he was going to read some of the other students' work out loud to provide examples of good and bad writing. After he did so, I realized something.

Every other student whose work had been read had argued for our school having cliques to one degree or another. Why, I wondered, was that? I knew most of the students whose work had been read and they were all friendly people who were willing to make friends with many others. Why then, would such people be able to argue for a certain degree of cliqueness, when I was not?  That was when it hit me. All of the other students whose work had been read were part of a tight-knit group of friends, a clique even. Because of this, all of them could clearly see the boundaries of their social circles and groups, as well as where other groups lie. For example, one girl talked about the differences between 'techies' and choir students, while another girl mentioned how she was mostly just friends with other members of the track team.

I, on the other hand, do not really belong to any group, or, like I mentioned before, have very many 'friend' friends. Good acquaintances? Yes. People who I admire and respect? Definitely. But no real 'group,' no obvious boundaries. I find that my 'friends' number among many groups from which I share interests, like AP/Honors nerds, reading nerds, history enthusiasts, band geeks, and of course the 'we don't have a group' group. But, I also have friends from other groups, like choir students, girl jocks, emo-ish people, the 'we're really weird for no reason' group, and the 'artsy-fartsy' kids. The result? I don't really see the boundaries since I don't have a belonging place with any. I bounce so easily from group to group, able to discuss boy trouble and Russian history all in the space of a few minutes, that I can simply walk through social walls like they don't even exist.

I guess this only leaves one burning question in my mind. To socialize or not to socialize? If I do like my mom wants me to I'll gain a whole new level of friendship that I've never really experienced before, but I risk losing my social immunity and ability to sort of fit in anywhere. If I keep doing like I'm doing now, I'll stay pretty much a loner and a nerd with few to no 'real' friends, but I'll still be able to walk through social walls, and still be able to sort of belong anywhere.