<p>Usually things start to change when the time is right. It seems it’s not the right time yet for the OP. Best of wishes.</p>
<p>Chaos, first you say you are “in serious need of guidance” and then you say that you “don’t have time to give everyone a thorough evaluation of their advice” because you’ve “been occupied with other things”.</p>
<p>Bettering yourself and your situation takes time and thought. It requires you to listen to what others have to say and genuinely asking yourself whether or not what they say has any truth to to it. </p>
<p>Forgive me if this sounds harsh, but your willingness to lash out at strangers who are taking their time and thought to give you their advice leads me to wonder whether or not you are exhibiting this type of behavior with those who could potentially be your friends.</p>
<p>Only you can answer that question and only if you are willing to be open and honest with yourself. A good counselor can help you find that happy place.</p>
<p>Good luck to you.</p>
<p>*I’m sorry I don’t have the time to give everyone a through evaluation of their advice, but I’ve been occupied with other things. *</p>
<p>I doubt if anyone expected the advice given on this thread or on similar threads to be “throughly evaluated”.
However, since much of it is repetitive because so many people feel the same things would be productive, it wouldn’t take much to say " hey!- Ive tried suggestions 6, 3 &7, 7 i’m having trouble with but I did find a counselor and have committed to giving that approach at least six months".</p>
<p>OP,</p>
<p>you’ve mentioned that you came from a small school, and that your friends were used to you and your sarcastic personality. And that you always had friends there. That’s good. But when someone grows up in a neighborhood, making friends is easy. People know you forever and give you a pass, knowing you from childhood they know you are really a nice person, etc.</p>
<p>Now you are in a new environment where no one knows you from way back when. They evaluate you on what they see and observe in the present because you don’t have a past with them. Just like you evaluate all the other students on campus. You yourself have said that you weird out the other students. I’m not sure why you made this statement, or what it refers to or encompasses…but maybe it’s something you need to examine.</p>
<p>Are you doing things to weird others out on purpose? To make a statement? To get a rise out of them? or are you just so naturally quirky that others don’t get you? I know it’s hard to convey tone on the internet, and I am not being snarky or accusatory here.</p>
<p>What I am getting at is , are you doing anything that is actively contributing to your isolation on campus? And if fitting in better is important to you, what can you do? </p>
<p>Vandy is not a small, stifling school…there are lots of types of people there, and you should be able to find your niche, especially if you are open to all kinds of people with all kinds of interests. Don’t put yourself in a box ( I am an “x” kind of person) and don’t put others in neat little boxes either because no one is so one dimensional. The girl you are characterizing as a Suzy Sorority may enjoy sorority activities…while also being an avid photographer who speaks four languages. That jocky lacrosse player might really like anime and cook like he’s on Top Chef. The kid you meet at Habitat for Humanity might love studying the stock market and want to be the next CEO of Google.</p>
<p>What people do you want to be? What did you dream about doing once you got to college? Go to meetings of the poetry club… or the campus radio station…or Habitat for Humanity…or the anime club…whatever several activities you find interesting…several times, so you can get to know the others and they get a chance to know you.</p>
<p>chaosakita - You are going back to a new semester, new classes, and possible new friends. Keep an update attitude… and smile 
Good luck!</p>
<p>She drew her line in the sand.
No more Mr Nice Guy. No, I’m kidding. But seriously, threatening to block a poster is just giving an opinion? Something’s all backwards here and we cannot fix it.</p>
<p>I didn’t expect an evaluation. Not did I expect the plaintive cry would be followed by a couple of hit and run snarks. I’m going to put the lid back on my pot now, before I vent. The good advice was kindly of posters- all of us occasionally need to see it laid out, to remind us, for ourselves. I appreciated that.</p>
<p>The op should have titled this, “Seriously in need of consolation” or “Seriously in need of support”, but not, “Seriously in need of guidance”. Guidance is obviously not desired.</p>
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</p>
<p>Until you can figure out what is wrong with these answers your life will not change…</p>
<p>IIRC, you shared in the past that you were femme. Have you found a circle of like-minded friends with whom you can feel comfortable? Its hard to relax and feel comfortable if you are feeling defensive (which does seem to come across a bit in some posts/responses here). Listen to suggestions, accept those which you find helpful, and pursue counseling. Good luck.</p>
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</p>
<p>No, I’m responding to your post that you have been at college for an entire semester and have made NO friends. You’ve admitted you can be edgy and “can come on strong.” That made me (and others) wonder if you are not seeing friendship as a two way street, in which you offer others as much as you hope to gain.</p>
<p>The way in which you have responded to many very nice, concerned, and well intentioned individuals here makes it quite easy now to see why you have made no meaningful connections.</p>
<p>OP,</p>
<p>I am thinking back to last spring when you wanted to go anywhere other than Vandy…just because it was anywhere else.</p>
<p>Are you maybe getting in your own way here, like a child trying to prove the parents wrong? (the phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face” comes to mind here)</p>
<p>Most people can bloom wherever they are planted. They seek sunshine, and they grow roots, and they help themselves thrive.</p>
<p>Vandy has fertile soil, lots of sunshine. In other words, thousands of students and lots of opportunities.</p>
<p>Don’t waste all that is available to you by convincing yourself that it is a horrible place.</p>
<p>It can be much, much harder to fit into the culture on a small LAC campus. And while there are a lot more people on a really large state campus, it can be just as difficult to find kindred souls.</p>
<p>And, as I remember finances were one of your family’s concerns–you might really be in a bind on that account.</p>
<p>So, as I said in a previous post, please give yourself and others a chance. You are obviously multifaceted, and so are all the other students on campus. Don’t put them, or yourself, in neat little boxes. </p>
<p>Get involved in things of interest to you, and go more than once. Friendships and relationships take time to develop…if you go to the anime club, for example, only once, you won’t make any friends. Go twelve times, and friendships will begin to grow. Try to find the time to do this in more than one activity, and you will find that your sense of isolation will go away. If you go only once…well, of course you feel strange and like an outsider, because you are…it takes time, and repetition, and familiarity, for a sense of belonging and comfort to grow.</p>
<p>Both of my kids take after their dad who makes friends slowly but keeps them for life. I make friends instantly and keep a few but not that many. I really think the quieter, less extroverted individual can get dismissed in our increasingly loud society but so often those people have the most interesting thoughts to share and eventually emerge as very fine leaders.</p>
<p>Just hang tough and have faith in yourself and your school. You will find your people and your people will find you. :)</p>
<p>Go back for spring semester with a smile on your face and no matter what stay positive. Fake it till you make it. Silly but works.</p>
<p>Chaosakita: What do you love? What do you care about passionately? What interests you and piques your curiosity? </p>
<p>What makes your heart leap? </p>
<p>That’s where I’d start. Oh, and ditto to the heaps of excellent advice posted here already.</p>
<p>I don’t think the key to connecting with people lies in OP thinking about herself more.
I think she does that plenty already.
To connect with people, you need to be able to relate to them.</p>
<p>In her thread from October, she posted she didnt find her core group of friends in high school until senior year, & that initially she hated some of those people.</p>
<p>Even though she is discounting advice from experienced posters, she might want to read over her own words.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1398744-college-not-going-well-id-like-just-had-worst-september-ever.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1398744-college-not-going-well-id-like-just-had-worst-september-ever.html</a></p>
<p>Personally, I think I hit the nail on the head in #43 when I wrote that OP anticipated that she would be the center of attention as she was in her high school, and is disappointed when that isn’t the case.</p>
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</p>
<p>I read this passage this morning and it made me think of Chaos, who sounds like a very lonely person.
-Olivia Laing-</p>
<p>“I don’t think the key to connecting with people lies in OP thinking about herself more.”</p>
<p>^Yes, I agree 100%. But working from a strength or budding, passionate interest usually works best as a starting point. People connect through the things they love; developing/preserving an interest in something outside ourselves can build a network of friendship and strength that lasts a lifetime (offers joy in the good times and solace in times of hardship and loss). I am asking about it as a place to start and reach out to others… poetry, film, animals, history, science, art…these things are not focusing on ourselves, but the opposite. Lonely or shy people can build rich foundations this way…such things can serve as a bridge to others…and to finding a way to engage and give back to the world. It’s one of the best ways to come outside of oneself.</p>
<p>Put another way: we attract friendship when looking outwards, with a spark in the eyes. When people are sad, or angry, they can forget what lights them up, and, too often, turn away from it. Bemoaning a difficult situation usually doesn’t help…gets people stuck. </p>
<p>In the interest of getting unstuck, I wonder what ignites Chaosakita–could be a good place to start <em>scaffolding</em> the new life at college and beyond.</p>
<p>Here is a fine microcosm of why perhaps OP is having problems socially, if OP finds the time to return to the thread where close to 50 people (many in multiple posts) have attempted to help her. She might compare this remark, of hers, </p>
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</p>
<p>with this one by another OP in a different thread:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1438769-18yo-returning-home-after-semester-away-3.html#post15265868[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1438769-18yo-returning-home-after-semester-away-3.html#post15265868</a></p>
<p>In thinking about likely reactions of others, I think many people would welcome the second post as an expression of humility and gratitude, and be drawn to the person making such comments–while they would find that the first post expresses arrogance, presumptuousness, condescension, and ingratitude, and would not be drawn to further interaction with the person.</p>
<p>OP’s concerns were echoed by a friend of DD1. She got into a very well respected and devilishly expensive NYC school, survived for 2 years with ho-hum (mostly hum) grades and was grateful to transfer back to our state flagship (where there several hundred kids from our HS enroll annually). Perhaps it’s an idea the OP could explore?</p>
<p>Also, I do not recall reading what OP’s major was. Some majors are inherently cliquish, as mentioned (some in a good way). </p>
<p>As a parent, tho, I would not be offering any sympathetic ear to the issue of ‘fit’ when it pertains to a nationally ‘good’ school such as Vandy. It’s very hard for us hyphenated Americans to consider ‘fit’ when most of us saw our school for the first time the day we arrived off the boat.</p>
<p>I recently was having a discussion with one of my best friends about the bad experience she had with someone last year. We came to this conclusion: beware of people in college who don’t have any friends. Here is our reasoning: if someone has absolutely no friends in college they either a. don’t want them or b. are doing something that drives people away. These types of people can be incredibly unpleasant to deal with and cause misery for others.
I was by no means social in high school, I had at most two real friends. Yet, when I got to college, I made an effort to branch out and meet new people. Even though I had some bad things happen to me first semester (bad roommate experience, unfriendly hall, getting sick during finals), I still made friends both in class and out and about. I can say that about other people as well, one of my friends is incredibly shy and often likes to be alone, but she has friends who she met through academic contexts.
Plenty of people have social issues in high school, it’s an awkward time for everyone. But college is different, especially if you go to a school the size of Vanderbilt (my sister actually is a freshman there). Even though there may be social groups that have reputations, you don’t have to pay attention to them because there are other things to do.
My advice for you chaosakita would be to examine what you are doing that seems to make people uncomfortable and try to fix it. I can personally testify that therapy is great for this if you can find a therapist who will tell you the honest truth. Social skills are important for everyone and the good news is that even if they don’t come naturally, they can be learned with the appropriate effort.</p>