I’m in my second year and last year I lost two friends because one was dropping out and one was an exchange student (there are unfortunately many temporary foreign exchange students at my college because it’s in a very nicely located area. I’m from Europe myself, but I’m not just and exchange student).
Today I came back from Christmas break and my friend who I made last semester knocked on my door and said she’s leaving tomorrow and transferring to another University. I generally have a very hard time making friends because I’m not very outgoing and I prefer having a few good friends (not many at all!). I see it as a personal accomplishment whenever I finally make a new friend so it’s incredibly frustrating and kind of lonely to have so many temporary friends/people in my life here.
Is this generally normal in college that friends come and go due to dropping out/transferring/going back home? I always thought it’s more solid and permanent? Did you have the same experience?
Thank you
Yes - welcome to college/adult life! You spend only 4 years trying to make friends, whereas in high school you probably knew your friends for 10+ years. It’s different.
Remember that the friend groups that seem to stick all 4 years are just anomalies - they’re the exception, not the rule.
Take this time to learn to be more independent.
It depends on the college. Some have more turnover than others. Or maybe you have just had a string of bad luck. The good news is that you seem to have some skill at making friends, which should help you going forward.
This might suck, but yes I think it’s normal. Forget all the stories you hear from people how they’re still friends with all their old college friends and how their college roommate was their best man or bridesmaid…that might be true for SOME people, but not for everyone. A lot of people leave college feeling lonely, because it was hard to make long-lasting friendships. The reality is for a lot of people, it’s hard to make long-lasting friendships. It is better to learn that from a young age.
I second what doctorgirl says-- learn to be more independent. Learn to figure out who YOU and and what you want from your own life. Go do the things you want to without relying on other people to approve it or to join you. Your experiences are up to you. Yes, I know it’s more fun to do things with other people, but sometimes that’s how you meet new people.
What happened to me was making a few long-term friends that I had throughout college, then having a bunch of acquaintances that I hung out with when we happened to run into each other. Basically I had my close group, then I had a circle of people I knew from various classes/clubs/circumstances and was friendly with. And after college it’s pretty much been the same…although full disclosure, I only graduated this past June.
And people do move away or end up drifting from you just because of life circumstances. That’s life. It’ll always happen.
I will say, when I first came to college I was shocked because it seemed like so many of the upperclassmen knew each other. I thought everyone was super social and I was the weird asocial one! Then when I was a junior myself, a freshman from my old high school commented that I seemed to know a lot of people. I realized that that’s more a product of running into the same people a lot and ending up getting friendly with them, than actually having a huge friend group. Even in a bigger major, when you’re hitting more advanced classes you really start seeing the same people and tend to start talking just from proximity. You start to realize how many situations there are where you see the same people outside of class, as well.