Hii everyone,
This is my first post on here. I’m writing because I’m a little worried and a little sad to be going back to college tomorrow. My first semester was a bit of a roller coaster socially and academically, and I think its partly my own shy nature and a few unusual circumstances that are at fault.
Going into college I knew making friends would difficult for me. In high school, I was a tad shy and introverted, but I always had my group of best friends by my side. I am very shy when first meeting people, however once someone is my friend I am always trying to nurture the relationship. The issue was that my friends from high school were all girls I have known for years, and it occurred to me that I would have to ‘relearn’ how to make close friends again once I got to college.
My first few weeks were going along okay, I hadn’t met anyone I would consider close (except for my roommate, who was wonderful) but I still had acquaintances. By October, I also had a guy I was seeing casually and everything seemed okay. But then in one week, I had broken up with this guy, and lost my roommate because of a medical emergency. These two were the only people at my college who I was close with, and after they were gone I started to feel very alone. After a week or two of feeling alone, I started to feel very self conscious about not having other friends. My grades started to falter, but I managed to keep my GPA above a 3 by the end of the semester. Whenever I felt really bad, I would visit my best friends from high school, who all went to the same college together.
Basically, I wouldn’t usually consider myself socially anxious, but the concept of returning back to school with no real friends is really depressing me. Is it normal to feel this lonely by the second semester? Is there anyway I can break into the social groups that have already formed?