<p>Honestly, it seems like no matter what I do I can't make friends. Solid friends. Friends who actually take the initiative (I always have to strike up conversation). I'm going to be entering my second year of uni, although after fall semester I'll be a junior in terms of credits. </p>
<p>I commuted my first year of college which definitely didn't help. I'm moving on campus this year which hopefully will help, but I'm not gonna get my hopes up, don't wanna be let down. But even commuting I met a few people that I THOUGHT would end up being friends, but I thought incorrectly. Even though we talked a lot, studied a lot, even hung out a lot, the only times I have talked to them this summer have been when I messaged them. And it's not like they're introverts, I know they take time out of the day to talk to their other friends.</p>
<p>I joined a club (it was hard to join more than one because of commuting without a car) and I now hold a leadership position, but I've only made one friend out of it. She's pretty cool, she's definitely one of my closer friends relatively speaking, but we're still not super tight. I also went on a service-oriented spring break trip with a group of people from my university and I thought that had gone well, but again most have not bothered keeping in contact.</p>
<p>Has anyone else found it ridiculously hard to make any lasting connections with people? I'm honestly starting to want to just graduate early, get a job and a house and just enjoy the silence of living by myself. Seems that's where I'll be ending up anyway.</p>
<p>I can relate to you in a sense man. My first semester was atrocious. I came in thinking everyone would be open, non-cliquey, etc and was quickly proved wrong. I was disappointed but it was largely due to me being told all through out HS that “people in college aren’t cliquey; they’re open to making friends, etc” but I’ve learned to accept and get over it.</p>
<p>I don’t know how you define a friend and idk how you view friends (i.e. quantity over quality), but imo, I think it’s much more refreshing to have quality over quantity. I don’t have that many friends in my life in general. I have somewhere between 5 and 10 HS friends and atm 1-3 developing college friendships (maybe more, we’ll see what the next 3 years bring). This is due to the fact that my definition of a friend is very strict and I just don’t call anyone a friend. To be my friend, you have to prove it over time. </p>
<p>But I was very alone my first semester and early spring semester. It wasn’t until the middle-end of spring semester that things started to drastically turn around. So I definitely knows how it feels to be alone. </p>
<p>Just don’t give up. I was in a similar situation to a user here named sadcollegestud where I was going to give up on making friends. But I’m glad I didn’t, because even though it pratically took me a semester and a half, I’m forming developing friendships. I know it can suck, but don’t give up on making friends. You never know who you’ll meet.</p>
<p>Oh a btw, don’t worry about the “friends” you made. To be blunt, they aren’t friends. It takes much more than a couple of laughs, having dinner together, and studying together to constitute a friendship. It takes two to tango, and if you’re the only one making the effort to communicate with them over summer that pretty much sets the tone of the future of your friendship. If I were you, I wouldn’t hold a grudge, but I would stop texting them. Have them text you for once.</p>
<p>Thanks for your response. I measure friends by quality over quantity. I’d say the zenith of my social life was in late high school. I had about 4 really great friends… and they were all I needed, frankly. Two became really distant and I don’t talk to them much or see them much, one I don’t see often but we still talk kinda often, the other I’ve distanced myself from because he’s a negative person to be around (and I’ve tried to help him change that but it never really worked). I also agree on your definition of “friend,” but I just use the word liberally since I don’t like typing out ‘acquaintance’ or ‘person I kinda know.’</p>
<p>I’ll try not to give up. I don’t know… it would be very liberating to be alone and simply not care about it. Sadly we’re social creatures and almost all of us need some sort of human interaction beyond talking to one’s boss or ordering coffee at Starbucks. And I have stopped initiating conversation with them. I chatted a friend at the end of May, she never ever talked to me again until I chatted her a week ago. Had a friend who I talked to practically every other day during the spring (we had a class together that met often), she hasn’t talked to me once since the last day of school.</p>
<p>I wish people weren’t like that. Especially when they spill details about their lives, really act like they see you as a friend, then turn around and just act like you were just another person passing by. An asset to be utilized for a while then abandoned.</p>
<p>I read somewhere that introverts are less likely to consider acquaintances friends than extroverts. I think that explains quite a bit. </p>
<p>Anyway, I feel you. At my last school, I had issues with racism and rude people and only ended up being friends with my roommate/people I knew in high school. Other than that, I was mostly on my own. I expect (well…hope) that I’ll be able to make friends once I transfer for real and live on a college campus with other college students.</p>