When I first came to college, I had expected and imagined college to be the best years of my life. But what I didn’t expect was how lonely I would feel while being surrounded by so many people. And while I no longer feel the same way I did at the beginning of my freshman year, I think this is something that isn’t the most uncommon feeling or experience to have at first.
When I first started to imagine college, I pictured late-night drives, getting ready with friends, spontaneous plans, and finding girls who would eventually feel like family. I thought making friends would happen naturally, that I would find my people and finally have the college experience I had always imagined.
What I didn’t expect was how lonely it could feel to be surrounded by people and still feel like I had no one.
I’ll never forget the very beginning of my freshman year, I was sitting in my dorm room on a Friday night, hearing the girls on my floor laughing in the hallway as they got ready to go out. I could hear music playing, doors opening and closing, and conversations about everyone’s plans. I remember scrolling through social media, seeing my friends from back home at their colleges taking mirror pictures and doing each other’s makeup, wishing I had someone here to do those little things with too.
Instead, I stayed in my room, wondering who I would even ask if I wanted to go out. I wasn’t completely friendless, but I didn’t feel like I had found my people yet. I think that was what hurt the most.
I wasn’t an introvert; I was simply so wrapped up in my own head about talking to people, that in a way I isolated myself from everyone else.
I would find myself comparing my own personal college experience to the ones I would see online more often than I’d honestly like to admit. I would see the matching outfits, birthday dinners, weekend trips, and seemingly inseparable friend groups, and I couldn’t help but wonder why finding those same connections felt so incredibly difficult for me.
Sometimes, I would sit there questioning myself; Am I not outgoing enough? Am I not putting myself out there? Is there something about me specifically that makes it harder to form friendships with people?
I felt embarrassed admitting the fact that I felt lonely, especially when college is supposed to be the time of my life. I came here expecting to make memories, not spending nights wondering why I didn’t have anyone to make them with.
I knew that social media wasn’t showing me the whole picture, but that by no means stopped me from comparing my experience in the moment to everyone else’s. It was hard not to feel like I was missing out when everyone else’s life seemingly looked exactly how I always imagined mine would have.
It wasn’t until the most random day during the second semester when I had decided that I didn’t want to feel like that anymore, and that I was going to, at the very least, try and do something about it.
I started talking to people next to me in class whom I didn’t talk to before, I started smiling at random people, and I finally started to form friendships.
It was very random and I think part of why it took me so long to put myself out there was because I was replaying scenarios in my own head and convincing myself that I probably just wouldn’t find anybody who would want to be friends with me anyways.
If I could go back to my freshman year and change how long it took me to get out of my own head, I would, because quite honestly, I remember it not being the most enjoyable feeling in the world. However, I do now think it was an important and valuable experience nonetheless, and I feel like it taught me that college truly is whatever you make of it.