Friendship, whether you like it or not

"Looking For Alaska" by John Green is about a teenage boy named Miles Halter who at the beginning of the book has no friends and just lives with his parents, but then he goes to boarding school. At boarding school, Miles meets new friends who show him new experiences which he wouldn't have expected to ever experience in his no boarding school, no badass friends, well no friends at all life. With his new friends, Miles smokes a cigarette for the first and second and third time, has his first big crush, has his first kiss, etc. Miles also finds himself caught in a bunch of drama with other students because of who he's friends with, the badass wallflower type people.

It's kind of weird that Miles never really had friends for whatever reason before, but then by the first week of boarding school he already has a whole group of friends. Maybe it's just a coincidence because he gets a sort of outspoken roommate (Chip/the Colonel) who just takes him in and introduces him to his entire friend group. But if it's that easy for Miles to make friends at boarding school, how come he didn't have any friends back home? I guess he's kind of nerdy and shy but he doesn't seem to have any real problems especially socially, so one would expect him to have at least some friends.

I feel like this happens in many books, where a lonesome awkward teenager who doesn't start off with many or really any friends is all of a sudden adopted into a whole group of friends. For example, Charlie in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. Charlie is different from Miles, he did have a friend before, and he does have some psychological problems that may be the reason he's kind of awkward and didn't have many friends. But similar to Miles, Charlie is very quickly adopted into a group of friends in his freshman year of high school. Maybe for both Charlie and Miles it was sort of the friends who befriended them because of maybe interest and a little bit of pity. 

In real friendships one doesn't really know who chose who, but they just sort of start and can stay for a pretty long time. I don't really remember how exactly I became friends with most of my friends, it just sort of happens. And maybe people become friends like Miles did, just because they live in a room together and kind of have to, but no matter how friends meet they're for the most part there to stay whether you like it or not. And maybe even if Miles and Chip weren't roommates they would still have managed to be friends because friendship is destined and finds a way.