How does anyone make friends?
Before the pandemic, during my freshman year, I easily made new friends in my classes, my dorm building, and random places on campus. Now, I have fallen out of touch with most of those friends I made, who I appreciated so much, and have not been able to make new friends in the UW environment since then.
While many students are polite, no one I’ve met has been particularly warm or welcoming and has not wanted to spend time together outside of school, work, or clubs.
I find ways to keep myself busy, and even forget how alone I feel, until I don’t and the reality of how alone I am comes crashing down. Social media exacerbates these feelings by showing me post after post of people going out to a party or dance with a large group of friends, brunch with their girlfriends, road trips and camping trips, etc. Sure, I have plenty of casual friends and acquaintances, but no one who I know well enough to see outside of class or to be invited to any event of theirs.
During Halloweek and Halloween, this feeling intensifies tenfold: as I want to go do big group activities and go to Halloween parties, but in reality, I don’t know anyone well enough to do these things with.
It doesn’t help that I live alone and have been in the same unit for two years. I’m grateful for my boyfriend who spends so much time with me; otherwise, I’d be completely alone. To this day, I have a terrible time making friends; and the whole thing has become somewhat hopeless.
I wish I could make friends who share interests with me and who want to go out and explore Seattle. I don’t have the same confidence doing things alone in public that I used to. Now, even going on a walk or grabbing food alone feels embarrassing.
There are people from my hometown who have become even closer over the past few years and then people in my grade at UW who have made new friends and “found their people.” I feel like I don’t fit in either place; anywhere, and never will.
I constantly overanalyze and criticize my social interactions: I was too friendly; I didn’t talk enough; why did I say that one thing? That was weird.
I guess I’m part of the problem too. As friendly as I want to be, I don’t want to come off to my peers as clingy or desperate. People I’ve met here are distant and removed; and I tend to match that energy.
If this is also you have felt or experienced, know you are not alone.