Hello! This forum was incredibly helpful during the college application process, and I was hoping you guys could help me one more time. I’ve been at college for over 3 weeks now, and I don’t really love it. People here got really cliquy really fast, and while I am a social person, I somehow missed the clique forming time and am left out of the loop. My roommate and I aren’t close (she prefers to stay in the room talking to her boyfriend and is kinda anti-social whenever I try to bring her out). I have friends on my floor and study groups for classes, and on weekends I can usually find a group of people to go to a party with or whatever, but everyone else is always forming plans within their group messages and sticking to their close friends and I’m left constantly tagging along or searching for things to do. No one minds having me around and people actively tell me they like me and like hanging out with me, they just tend to stick with their packs first and don’t seem to feel the need to add me to the group messages and make me part of the group. I don’t mean to sound like I am sitting in my room alone; I usually can find someone to get dinner with etc and hang out with, I just feel lonely because I don’t belong to a group I can count on. I’ve been trying to get involved. I applied to a bunch of clubs (got denied from the one I wanted most that fit my interests really well) and am still waiting to hear back on the rest. I just miss my best friends and having people I can count on and that I knew wanted me around and would include me no matter what. I am lonely and tired, and instead of friends being a respite from stress, the constant struggle to make friends is making me more stressed. All my friends from home got to choose their roommates and ended up with roommates and floormates that became incredibly close. While my floor will occasionally study together, when I text about weekend plans everyone is already planning stuff with their cliques. Basically, I am the girl where when I walk across campus there are always people waving and saying hi and willing to grab coffee and stuff, but when it comes time to have a movie night or go out to dinner or hit a party together, everyone prioritizes their other friends over me. Basically, any advice you have on beating this lonliness and making a core group of friends that I can count on would be much appreciated
@classof2k16 - Father of 3 (all in college right now, twin freshman girls) here. This may not sound like the best advice, but I would say “stay the course”. You are doing everything right - you are getting involved, you are reaching out, you are not sitting in your room. Your experience is most definitely the norm. It can seem like an eternity when you leave the comfort of close friendships that have been developed over years, but I can assure you that you will look back and wonder what you were worried about.
Change your way of looking at things. You are not tagging along you are part of the group. You don’t have one group of friends, you have several. Ask your friends earlier in the week if you want to go to the movies, or tell them you are going to dinner at 6 and ask if they want to join you.
It only been a couple of weeks. Give it time. It is not going to be any different at another school where you really would be the new girl.
This is so normal this early in. I know it feels like you have been there forever, but three weeks is not really enough time to get to know other people very well. Give it time. Keep doing what you are doing. By the time you go home for winter break I bet you will find that you have a core group of friends that you are spending most of your time with.
Whoa- I’m only hearing about college as a social scene. You are in your schools first for the academics. You hopefully like your classes and are doing well in them. The people new freshmen spend time with change as they get to know more people. You will meet people with the same interests in your classes (you picked the same ones).
Everyone who has gone to college made changes as the weeks and months went by. Roommates are hopefully benign people who share living space- mainly for sleeping. You do not need to be friends with a roommate, you just need to get along.
It takes time to develop relationships. Everyone is trying out different versions of themselves as well- they will be different people by the end of the semester. There is a learning curve. You all have the same college in common. Those in your dorm have that in common. Think good old Venn diagrams. You find people to eat with, perhaps to study with from a class as time goes on. Stop trying to make friends! Relax and enjoy classes and the experiences without worrying about how things should be.
Somehow I don’t think there are the cliques you are imagining- life is not like high school. No popularity contests or the only group to want to join. By the end of the semester you will see changes once students settle into their college lives.
@classof2k16 from the other similar posts of freshman struggling to make friends I would say you are way ahead of the game. Most of the people posting about not having a group don’t have a fraction of what you are saying. It sounds to me like you are doing all the right things and as others have said, it takes time to develop deeper relationships.
It really sounds like in time you will get to where you are wanting to go. You seem to be generating a lot of activity and meeting people so eventually those people who grab a cup of coffee with you can develop into deeper relationships.
I was an OOS student who knew nobody on my campus of 12k students. I met people my first weeks but nobody that was a close friend. I did join a fraternity and meet more people but I wouldn’t say that I really developed deeper relationships until my second semester. I really feel most of me deepest friendships came from the ones I formed more in my second semester and sophomore year.
That first semester, so many students are just trying to figure out life in general. New setting, new people, first time on their own for many. No parents watching your every move. It takes time to sort through and adjust to all the changes. Once people get more comfortable in their new setting and figure things out then it seemed like making friends became easier since they didn’t have all the extra stress.
I also found that outside of my fraternity, the friends I made came out of my major. Since we were in the same classes together and worked on group projects together over time, we developed friendships. But those relationships developed of time not over the course of a semester.
I know a kid in the same situation. It just takes time. You have to bear with it. I agree, you are doing things right.
OP, approach a person or two in your favorite friend group or the one you’re closest with and tell them your predicament. Tell them your roommate is kind of anti-social b/c talking to her boyfriend all the time and ask them if they can add you to their group messages because you’d rather hang out with them. I bet they’ll be glad to add you. Everyone is new, and no one is completely comfortable or has it all figured out yet. Just ask.
You are fine. My S was in a similar situation where his roommate was not a good social fit and it took him a while to find his close friends. In the meantime people always seem happy to have you come along which is a really good thing. Just keep doing what you are doing. When you start to feel close to someone or a group ask if they wouldn’t mind adding you to their GroupMe. It is early and friendships are still fluid.
Remember your HS friends were cultivated over years and years of shared classes and experiences. Keep plugging and give it time.
You are about 2% into your college undergrad career. When did anything worthwhile happen with 2% of the time elapsed? Join a few clubs, randomly sit with people at dinner, go to the gym, volunteer for your favorite candidate… You will start to make a few friends by the middle/end of the semester.
the first folks you run into are likely not the “lifelong friends” you are hoping for. My freshman year the folks on my hall in my dorm were nice enough, but not “my people.” I discovered a different “gang” later that year who became my close friends throughout, not to mention people I became close to in my major over the four years.
Your roommate might be homesick and missing her boyfriend. But she won’t be talking to him all the time.
Sometime ask her if she wants to do something, get out of the room a bit.
Maybe she will even become a good friend, who knows.
People deal with this change in different ways. Give it time.
You are fortunate that lots of people seem to like you already.
I will disagree with wis post 4, in just a small way. Only 3 weeks into college frosh IS very much like high school. With more time, you and others around you will mature more, leading to better times for you. You’re getting around and doing a lot of things right. It doesn’t help you today, but I am confident that with time these troubles will soon be forgotten.
All the above advice is great. I would only suggest one thing - you say everybody is texting their group of friends to plan something and for whatever reason you’re left out of the group text. Pick one or two of your favorite groups and start a group text yourself early in the week for weekend activities. That way you’ll be in the group text and they won’t actively remove you from the group.
What’s probably happening is that a group started texting before meeting you, and the people in the group are just continuing the group thread while nobody’s thought to add you. If you don’t think it’s too pushy (and don’t want to follow my suggestion for starting your own group text) you could look for an opportunity to simply ask somebody in the group to add you. The next time you’re going with a group somewhere but they’re still planning it, just ask if they’re texting about it and then ask to be added to the group list.