Types of people I get along best with
As I've started college, I have effectively had a chance to rebuild my social life from scratch. I've realized a large part of the quality of your life is determined by your environment, which is largely determined by the people you hang around with. So I believe it's well worth spending and thinking about what kind of people you want to surround yourself with.
This has led me to rethink what values I hold important in my friends, particularly after forming several 'loose friendships' and deciding which ones to further focus on. I plan on enlisting all the qualities and traits I'm attracted to in friends here — to help organize my thoughts and find more awesome friends!
These are a few qualities I have noticed in people I'm close to:
Someone with ambitious goals several standard deviations away from the median.
Someone open-minded. They approach topics with curiosity, and are willing to update their beliefs, as opposed to a prior opinion.
Someone who has strong contrarian opinions. They're skeptical of what it is to be 'sensible' and would rather reason everything from first principles.
Regularly goes above and beyond for people they care about. In my opinion, this usually ends up strengthening relationships at an exponential rate, as opposed to a linear one.
Strongly feels an urgent need to give back to society. There's a quote from Twitter I relate to, "you don't owe anybody anything" has done irreparable damage to the collective psyche. this ordeal of existence is collaborative. we owe each other as much as we're able to give." This sense of underlying sense of responsibility is something I deeply resonate with. It's a really good proxy for me to find people who share a similar worldview.
Someone from whom I can learn something from. This could be anything, from how bonds work, to protein folding. Ideally there's something I can teach them too!
I realize that these are an extensive set of requests to ask from a person. Making this list is also a way for me to hold myself to these standards if these are the people I want to surround myself with.