Sense of Belonging Discussion School

Posted: January 20th, 2023

Once you have written your paragraph, you are to respond to two of your peers’ paragraphs in at least 100 words each.In your reply, respond to all 5 parts in your peer’s initial post, making sure to explain what you relate to and your judgment about your peer’s experience with their friends and family.

Classmate 1 :
1. I believe that I used to have a rather strong need to belong, it has gotten a lot better over the last year or two but I believe that it stems from being picked on and having very little friends as a child. I believe that I now am more appreciative of my own company than I was a few years ago, but when I used to have a really strong need to belong I would play sports that I wasn’t interested in and listen to music I didn’t really like in order to fit in. Now I try to be as authentic to myself as possible so when I do make new friends they are actually interested in similar things to me and I have to do very little compromising. The only area I usually have to compromise is going out to eat at places that don’t usually have a large vegetarian selection because my friends picked the restaurant which I don’t usually mind because I can (most of the time) find something on the menu.
2. I believe that currently the biggest costs to maintaining my friendships are the gas and money spent on gas from all of the road trips we have done together and the cost of going out to eat dinner. I also I work with a couple of my friends and they always call me in on my day off when we get a call out so I have made compromises going into work on my day off to help out my friends. I used to have a friend that I was really close with, we even moved in together but when she and her boyfriend were going through a tough breakup she ended up getting evicted for not paying rent and cut me out of her life altogether. I would constantly reach out to see how she was doing, I would ask about her family, school, and invite her out to dinner but eventually I realized I was the only one reaching out and I wasn’t getting the same effort back. Unfortunately I don’t like having one sided relationships and I stopped putting in more effort than she was putting in until eventually we stopped talking because I would no longer message her first.
Classmate 2 :
 

I have a strong need to belong. I love my husband and I feel so privileged that I found such a good partner, but I do not fit into his family very well. I Cuss like a sailor and use a lot of humor, and I know that I have gotten on my mother-in-law’s nerves because of this. I try to be respectful by watching my language and them, which makes me feel like I cannot be myself. I find myself calling my aunts, sister, and mother to feel that feeling of belonging. I know that I do not have to censor myself around them and I feel more at ease because of that.

When I was in my early twenties I lived in Arkansas with my Grandmother. I found that I did not like living in the south because of cultural differences. Most of the people there liked Country music and were very conservative. Through, there is nothing wrong with those two things, I just did not feel like I fit in as a liberal heavy metal enthusiast.
2.I think some of the biggest cost associated with maintaining friendships is to remember to take the time to see each other. There is not the same pressure to see friends as much as there is family. So it is harder to prioritize it. I found that after high school I had to send many of my friendships because I felt like many of them were toxic. I felt like I was going in a different direction than most of them and as sad as it was pretty easy to end those friendships.