Making new friends at camp is not a betrayal to a best friend even if it is uncomfortable for you that she did

Tziporah’s Take

Hi, my name is Tziporah. Everyone calls me Tzippy, or Tzip. Camp is ending soon and I’m dreading going back to school. I’ll tell you why.

Before the summer, my best friend, Adina, and I were beyond excited about going to sleepaway camp together. What could be more fun than spending eight full weeks with your favorite person? We’d do everything together, stay up late schmoozing, play games, eat nosh, and just have the best time. I counted down the seconds until we were there.

Camp turned out to be even more fun than I expected and best of all, Adina and I were together and having the time of our lives.

That was for the first three weeks or so.

At around week four, Adina made a friend. And then she made another. And pretty soon she was off doing camp activities with these other girls instead of me, leaving the bunk even before I woke up, planning activities without involving me, sitting at other tables for breakfast and lunch. I tried to tag along but I didn’t feel comfortable with these other girls the way Adina did, so I started to drift away and hang out on my own. I made a friend or two myself, but camp was turning out to be a real bummer without Adina by my side. I even tried talking to her about it and her response was to laugh it off and say, “Come on, Tzip, we basically live together! We don’t have to be Siamese twins!” Easy for her to say with a group of four girls hanging around her constantly. She’s always been extremely popular.