<p>Alright, so last year, I became friends with essentially two groups of friends: my floormates and my "advanced level" freshmen classmates. I chose to live with two of my classmates because all I knew I would party a lotttt with my floormates, and I didn't want my grades to suffer.
After committing to my "classmate" friends, I realized that we have nothing in common aside from the fact that we are interested in the same subjects. They do not like to drink, they do not like being in a social environment, and they work every weekend, meaning I am without friends on the weekend. Also, one of them sometimes talks negatively about my behind my back.
My floormates are living in a completely different building than I am next year, so I feel like my relationship with them will just break down. I am now unhappily left with these two friends, and I feel like it is going to be very difficult for me to befriend others since social circles were formed freshman year.</p>
<p>Can someone advise/console me.. please? It doesn't help that I am shy when meeting new people... </p>
<p>I considered pledging a frat, but I some of my floormates pledged freshman year, and their grades were terrible. I'm here on a scholarship so I CANNOT let my GPA drop from where it is now.</p>
<p>Can’t say anything relating to frats (except that some – I’ve heard, at least – are actually somewhat dedicated to academics). However, not every has made their life-long friends during freshman year. Think back to high school: did you make friends as a sophomore or junior then? Probably. </p>
<p>What do you like to do? Find a place that’ll let you explore those hobbies with other people. Try out clubs or sports teams or whatever interests you, and start up a conversation with whoever is there. I’ve been in your place before, plenty of times, with being shy and not knowing anyone when you walk into a place where everything seems to be set in stone already in terms of friendships. For a while, I just ran away, hid by myself, and didn’t bother returning to that club. Then I just had to tell myself: would I rather be lonely or risk making a fool of myself around people I can just walk away from if things go bad and have a chance at befriending them?</p>
<p>(I know that last sentence was horribly worded. I’m sorry. It’s well past midnight.)</p>
<p>It’s okay to be shy. Just find that one thing that really pumps you up, makes you excited, and jump into it. People will flock. No one is every really alone when they put themselves out there.</p>
<p>Visit your floormates a lot. Use your cell phone to text them. Just because you don’t live with them doesn’t mean you can’t chill/go out with them. </p>
<p>This is actually a good arrangement for you. Stay in touch with your floormates (over the summer as well). Now you will have the opportunity to meet new people in your dorm as well as new people in the dorm with your old floormates will be living. You’ll meet twice as many people this way. This is great!</p>
<p>There isn’t much more to say other than the responses that you’ve all ready been given.
Stop worrying. Life is ever changing and part of life is learning to adjust to unexpected or new situations. It’s time to move on, enjoy your summer, and focus on something other than rehashing your decision for next semester’s living arrangements. It’s not like you’re going to be living with complete strangers. College is about education both academically and socially. Be open, meet new people, enjoy and appreciate the differences in people, and learn to adjust and adapt to different social situations.</p>
<p>Good luck in the fall. Don’t waste your summer dwelling on this.</p>
<p>I agree with nysmile, there’s no point in stressing about this all summer. College is large enough to constantly have the opportunity to meet new people and form new friendships. My son was in the same position as you…lived apart from his floormates from freshman year in his sophomore year and was worried about making new friends. It all ended up working out - he met new people and ended up finding a new group of friends to hand out with. He did decide to join a frat but was not very happy with it ultimately and dropped after a year. It was very time consuming and it wasn’t all he thought it would be. He did make a few friends through joining though.</p>
<p>Things have a way of working out, have faith that you made the decision you did for a reason.</p>
<p>Try not to think too hard about making friends, usually if you’re happy and act like yourself people come to you. Although you’re shy, just try saying ‘hi’ to people you see that you might know, smile, make some new friendships.</p>
<p>Keep in touch with your old friends. Hang out with them on weekends as much as you can.</p>
<p>Pledging will drop your GPA a bit. It is time consuming, but academics are considered your most important thing to do. If you know that your grades cannot go below a certain mark then let them know and they will work with you. Many houses have a certain amount of study hours you must complete and even if you are at the house a lot, you will be able to study. Many houses have a study room/library and you can work on your academic in down time between tasks. You will just need to do well with time management. And greeks tend to have a higher average than the school average, so they take academic seriously themselves.</p>