<p>Im a freshman in college and I moved in a little over a month ago. The first few weeks I went out with the group of guys that I met during the first few days. We ate together, played xbox, hung out in each others rooms, met girls, pretty much everything that a typical group of freshman guys would do together. As I got to know them a little better I began to realize that theyre not the type of people I can see myself becoming good friends with. They also began to ostracize me from their group. Everyone would always text each other or go knock on their door to hang out or figure out things to do, but they stopped including me. Whenever I did manage to go out with them I felt like the odd man out and it was very easy to tell that they were trying to get rid of me.<br>
Some things happened multiple times to give me the idea that they wanted to ditch me. There were times when we would be hanging out in someones room, and I would get up to go to the bathroom. I would come back one or two minutes later and the door would be closed and nobody would answer when I knocked. Another time after we ate dinner the kid who lives across from me told me that everyone was going back to their rooms and that he would text me and let me know what was going on later, but never actually did. The next day pictures from the previous night were uploaded to facebook and they talked about it extensively, and for some reason I was excluded.
The past few nights I have sat in my room alone, and the guys in my dorm never ask where I was or what I did. Im shy around people I dont know but I worked hard coming into college to be outgoing and meet new people. All my efforts to hang out with and become friends with those guys werent reciprocated back to me. Ive tried talking to some other people in my dorm and when I ask what they have planned they either say that they are going home or hanging out with friends from high school who go to school here. My roommate is a good fried from high school but he either goes home on the weekends or is in the same situation as me. I looked into 4 different clubs and went to meetings for all of them but I wasnt passionate about any of them. Im not an antisocial person and I had a close group of friends in high school that I hung out with all the time. Now Im a month into college and I dont have a group of people who I can call my friends and that want to hang out with me. I dont know what to do.</p>
<p>Okay, first of all, it’s good that you’ve tried and made attempts to connect to people. Lots of people complain that they’re not making friends when they sit around in their rooms all day and use CC.
Continue to talk to people and try out different clubs. Go to the gym or student center. When you eat, ask to join the person sitting on their own. Try out for something you think you’d be awful at, but you think might be fun, and participate with gusto.<br>
But one of the greatest ways to make friends is to do stuff for other people. Something unexpected. My friend in my hall decided he’d randomly make cake for the hall one night, and suddenly, everyone knew his name. I decided to organize a birthday party for someone in our hall, and then people knew my name. Another person decided to share her dinnerware with anyone who wanted to use it, and then people knew her. Spend time around other people, and focus the attention on them. If you try to keep the focus on yourself, it’s just going to turn out badly, but if you care about other people, they’ll notice that, and start to put the attention on you.
And if things don’t get better soon, then talk to your RA, or visit a counselor in the health center. They’re there for your benefit, and honestly, talking to my RA about my own fears has helped a lot.</p>