High school is a time when teenagers make new friends and drift from old ones. Due to the many relationships forged during this time, tensions may develop between close friends if one person develops a friendship with the other’s former friend or opp (a slang term for opposition). A mature approach to this dilemma may be to try and understand the cause of the falling out and the friendship level between the friend and the opp and decide if it isn’t harmful to be friends.
Senior Karissa Victoria, junior Aidan Fluksi, sophomore Mohamad Lubbadeh and freshman Olivia Odulio all believe that their friends can be friends with whoever they chose, but there are certain limitations when it comes to befriending their friend’s opps.
For Victoria, she feels that she would only object to her friends’ friendship if it were a close friend befriending an opp who had deeply hurt her.
“Say I’m dating this guy and he cheats on me and my best friend goes to become his friend… That’s where I’m going to talk to her and be like, ‘Yo, I think there should be boundaries,’” said Victoria.
For some teenagers like Fluksi, their friends being friends with their opps is an act of disloyalty. It causes them to be hesitant about what they say around their friends as now there is a lack of trust.
“It’s not something that I would end the friendship over, but I think it’s just some basic loyalty… I wouldn’t be friends with their opps and I expect the same,” said Fluksi.
Although their responses towards the dilemma vary, the premise of their responses is the same; it’s situational. Knowing what the situation is about is important for a friend to consider before befriending a friend’s opp.
Some students such as Lubbadeh and Odulio have opted to compromise on the issue by not severing ties with friends who befriend opps, but asking to be left out of unwanted interactions. They both see no reason for their friend to talk about their opp or bring their opp near them.
“In my perspective, if you want to be friends with them that’s okay, but don’t be, like, next to them with me. Like, don’t include me with them,” said Lubbadeh.
Odulio believes it is important to have a separate friendship between the opp and the friend in order to avoid complications in their friendship.
“Just don’t bring their drama… Don’t talk about them around me,” said Odulio.
If people always try to avoid being friends with their friends’ opps, it would make friendships harder to find as there would be a lot of cautiousness involved. With 1700 students on a small campus, it’s likely that most people on campus are connected in some form whether it be from a shared class or through connections amongst friends.
Teenagers shouldn’t sever close friendships because of their friends’ relationships with their opps unless the situation is intolerable such as the opp starting a rumor about them. With that, it is important to remember empathy and maturity, as they are valuable life skills that can cause growth within friendships instead of bringing them to an end.
