The transition from high school to college is a big one; change of schedule, course load, and oftentimes moving away from home. One of the hardest changes for me was the social adjustment. At home, I have a close group of friends that I do everything with. When I decided to go to college out-of-state, I knew this meant leaving my group behind. I had not had to make new friends in a long while and discovered quickly into my freshman year that I had no idea how to do that. On paper it seems simple; go up to someone, introduce yourself, make plans to hang out. To me, this was my own personal kind of hell. I was so overwhelmed by my new home, new school, new life really, that I was not confident I could handle making new friends.
I was not sure what I wanted my social scene to look like; did I want to go to parties or stay in on the weekends? I was self-conscious that if I answered this question differently than a potential friend, they would think poorly of me. I did not want to look like a dork that does not like to have fun by not partying my nights away, but I also did not want to start going out every night only because that is what everyone else was doing.
I soon realized that I had, what seemed to me, to be social anxiety. Though I was never diagnosed by anyone, I knew that I was definitely anxious in social situations. I did not deal with this well. I took to isolating myself from any potential friends I could have because I had convinced myself that they would not like me once they got to know me. I spent almost every night in my dorm and some days, I would only speak to one person a day, whether it be answering a question in class or saying “thank you” to someone holding a door open for me.
If you are going through something similar now as you read this, I am here to tell you, it does not last forever, nothing does.
I met my current roommate in my Freshman Year Experience class. Even now, I could not really tell you how we connected but alas, here we are. We began to spend a lot of our time together and tried to put ourselves out there by going out to parties and other on campus events.
I met another one of my current friends completely by chance, asking for directions. In our small conversation, we learned we were in the same boat – scared witless. We ran into each other a few more times in our first semester. I met the cohost of my radio show/podcast because she lived down the hall from me. She noticed me reading and asked me to get coffee as she told me she loves to read too. To my surprise, later on that fall I found out that those two girls had become friends by themselves. The three of us got dinner together a few times and then I was introduced to their friends. Since then, the six of us have gone to concerts, gone on vacation, and talked to each other every single day.
These girls helped me overcome my insecurities and ease my anxieties. I could not be as happy and confident as I am without them. I am sure that everyone who knows me can immediately picture the six of us together as we are always attached at the hip.
My advice to other college students struggling with social anxiety – be gentle with yourself. Just because other people appear to be having the time of their lives with a million and one friends, does not mean a thing. From my experience, it is the people online who look like they have their life together in college that don’t. So stop looking at social media – I’ll scream it from the rooftops if I have to.
I am not going to tell you to suck it up and go out there and just do the thing. I know that making friends is much easier said than done. What I will say is, you are one thousand times better than you think you are. Not every person you meet will be your best friend, but also not everyone you meet is going to hate you either.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Taylor Swift lyrics:
“It only hurts this much right now
Was what I was thinking the whole time
Breathe in, breathe through
Breathe deep, breathe out”
XO Christina