By: Keeley Bombard
I feel like I’ve been pacing back and forth for an eternity, further wearing in the old carpet that’s new to me. I check the time, and it’s only been an hour. While I desperately want to go say hello to the owners of the footsteps and laughter outside my door, I can’t bring myself to abandon the manufactured comforts of the tiny cement rectangle. My childhood stuffed animal and pictures of happier times serve as a kind of armor, protecting me from the embarrassment I somehow already feel.
In a display of alarming cowardice, I stretch my shaky hand toward the door handle, but am not able to make contact. On the fifth try, I wrack up enough courage to open the heavy door and peer out into the uncharted territory that lies beyond its boundary. I yank it closed again at the first sign of human life. Who knew that introducing yourself to your new neighbors could be so terrifying?
Nobody tells you how much time you’ll spend by yourself when you come to college. They say, “Keep your dorm room door open!” and “Be friendly! Make connections with people!” They don’t say you might be too scared to walk outside your dorm and introduce yourself to the girls on your floor. I definitely wasn’t warned that telling someone your name and home state would feel like a victory.
It’s strange and disorienting to come from having your own tight-knit community of friends and family to a place where no one knows your name. To come from eating with a dozen of your favorite people at the lunch table to eating alone at the dining hall. You feel like you’ve been thrown into something bigger than yourself. Journeying out into the unknown – even if it’s just into the hallway – makes you feel vulnerable and strange.
The weirdest part is not having your go-tos. Your friend who is always down to grab some food and rant about what happened that day. Your significant other who is always excited for movie night and a good hug. Your favorite high school teacher who is always there to give you advice and tell jokes. At college, you’re starting over in a haze of uncertainty. You get the feeling that everyone has their new friend groups locked down already, that somehow you missed the deadline for forming your social circle.
You assume you’re not adjusting as well as everyone else, and you’re doomed to spend the rest of college playing catch-up and then you’ll graduate, having missed out on the college experience you left home to find and then… stop. Slow down. Take a breath. In, then out. I have to remind myself to calm down when I start thinking like this.
You can’t expect to form relationships like the ones you had at home in a single week. The girls who live across the hall aren’t going to understand you like the girls you played tag with at recess. Those friendships took years to transform into a second family, so it won’t happen overnight when you get to college, and that’s okay!
There’s something exhilarating about having a fresh start. You have boundless opportunities that allow you to cultivate lasting relationships from the ground up. By spending time with Me, Myself, and I, the qualities I look for in a friend came to the forefront of my mind.
You no longer have to care about who’s friends with whom, or who hung out with whose best friend last weekend. The prejudice that existed in high school based off of popularity is nonexistent at college, so you can truly make friends with anyone you meet. I thought my friendships in college would develop right away, but I’m learning to adjust my expectations.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve come to understand the irony of feeling pressure to make friends right away. In order to cure my loneliness, I need to spend time alone. Although it sounds counterintuitive, I’m learning exactly what I want to find in my new environment by spending time with myself. Through doing things that I enjoy, I will get to meet people who have similar passions. Eventually, I’ll feel less alone, and the world outside my dorm will stop looking so hostile.
You might be feeling lost without your community from home, but you can remedy this by reaching out to them. Your mind is an expert at tricking you into thinking nobody could possibly be struggling like you are. When I talked to my favorite people from home, I was shocked to hear that each of them resonated with these lonely feelings.
Loneliness is affecting the entire country, not just your friends, and definitely not just you. According to a national survey conducted by CBC News, “…more than 66 percent [of university students] reported feeling ‘very lonely’ in the past year.” While some struggle more than others, it is a universal truth for college freshmen that you will feel out of place at first. Talking to friends from high school and my dance studio back home made me realize that it wasn’t just me. Everyone is being shocked by this new situation and could benefit from a FaceTime call from their old pals.
Loneliness has been something new for me. It was something I wasn’t equipped to deal with at first, but has been instrumental in discovering what I want to spend my time at college doing. If you feel like you aren’t moving at the right pace for the social clock at your school, just know you’re not alone.
Me, Myself, and I will transform into Me, My Friends, and Best Friends. You will form your new community in time, and it will perfectly embody what it means to be you. You’ve got this!
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