To the Person Afraid of Making Friends In College
Hey Everyone,
So with my freshman year of college now being complete, I want to do a few posts about it, a few posts as reflections and also a few other posts that I have no clue what they are yet because I will make stuff up like right before I do it most of the time honestly. However, I know what I want to talk about today and yes this may be slightly emotional but it will be worth it in the end.
So a little back story in senior year of high school, I took creative writing and one of our assignments was to do something called blackout poetry about our fears. For those of you who may not know, blackout poetry is when you take old book pages and color them in until you are left with only the words of the poem showing. So my set of three blackout poems was about being afraid I was not going to make friends in college. Throughout all my school experiences, kindergarten through senior year, I had only had a small group of friends at school, which changed every few years except for my best friend since the first grade. Then I had a good amount of friends at my cheer gym, whom I had been friends with for the longest time, some almost eleven years. Making friends was hard for me and took me a long amount of time to do. So going into college, above all this was my biggest fear.
Now that you got the little back story, these were the three poems I had written in the class:
1) " The faces of strangers had alert expression; but were essentially quiet, one or two grinned which seemed to settle me, no doubt I have been horrified this past month of course I would live"
2) "People are trouble yet kind to me. They are kind but for years I have crumbled, yet with each day complete" (This one only makes half sense to me so don't judge I do not know what was going one while writing it)
3) "People nod their heads, I could probably turn to talk. I tend to be passive, ride the waves, enforce the rules, I wanted to know people"
I wrote these poems expressing several of my main concerns when trying to make friends in college. The first concern being that while people would be willing to talk to me and try to be nice, I would not fit in with them and they would just eventually drift off and I would not make close friends with them. Also another concern was that some of my friendships in the past just went ghost and I was left without many friends in school environments. And my last concern was that I would be too afraid of talking to people and being judged, that I would let my fear control me and not talk to people and try to make friends and just be kind of alone, even though I would have wanted to make friends.
But as I look at those concerns and reflect on the past year in school, I can safely say that I made some really amazing friends this year at school, even if I had moments of doubt right before these connections happen. I remember my parents leaving after dropping me off and me talking to my roommate and she was talking about how she knew all these people already and I knew maybe two from my high school, whom I did not know really well. I suddenly got very nervous that I would not make friends because people were already be in their friend groups from high school and that even my roommate was in that situation and I would be alone. Now looking back this was not the case at all. Later that night after me and my roommate ate dinner, we stopped to see a few girls that she had met at orientation and we hung out with them all night. Suddenly my nerves were gone and I realized I might actually make some friends, and the next day we met up with them again and more girls from their orientation group and now I have an amazing group of friends.
We all hung out all the time and I was relieved and so thankful for making this many friends in a short period of time. Then just when I thought I was lucky enough, the next week my roommate and my friend were going to a meeting for Dance Company, I had never danced before but had done cheerleading my whole life, but I decided to go with them to the meeting. I was so nervous because I thought I would not fit in but my fears were again wrong and I made some really good friends there too.
Now moral of this long blog post was that so much can change in such a little time, that even if you are afraid of making friends, you eventually will. Now I am not saying it will happen suddenly because obviously it took time to form these relationships with people but do not let fear stand in the way of making friends because if I had let fear stand in the way of doing things I would not have made great friends and have the great memories I have now. I hope you all enjoyed this post and I cannot wait to share more of my life with you guys!
Much love,
Ally
So with my freshman year of college now being complete, I want to do a few posts about it, a few posts as reflections and also a few other posts that I have no clue what they are yet because I will make stuff up like right before I do it most of the time honestly. However, I know what I want to talk about today and yes this may be slightly emotional but it will be worth it in the end.
So a little back story in senior year of high school, I took creative writing and one of our assignments was to do something called blackout poetry about our fears. For those of you who may not know, blackout poetry is when you take old book pages and color them in until you are left with only the words of the poem showing. So my set of three blackout poems was about being afraid I was not going to make friends in college. Throughout all my school experiences, kindergarten through senior year, I had only had a small group of friends at school, which changed every few years except for my best friend since the first grade. Then I had a good amount of friends at my cheer gym, whom I had been friends with for the longest time, some almost eleven years. Making friends was hard for me and took me a long amount of time to do. So going into college, above all this was my biggest fear.
Now that you got the little back story, these were the three poems I had written in the class:
1) " The faces of strangers had alert expression; but were essentially quiet, one or two grinned which seemed to settle me, no doubt I have been horrified this past month of course I would live"
2) "People are trouble yet kind to me. They are kind but for years I have crumbled, yet with each day complete" (This one only makes half sense to me so don't judge I do not know what was going one while writing it)
3) "People nod their heads, I could probably turn to talk. I tend to be passive, ride the waves, enforce the rules, I wanted to know people"
I wrote these poems expressing several of my main concerns when trying to make friends in college. The first concern being that while people would be willing to talk to me and try to be nice, I would not fit in with them and they would just eventually drift off and I would not make close friends with them. Also another concern was that some of my friendships in the past just went ghost and I was left without many friends in school environments. And my last concern was that I would be too afraid of talking to people and being judged, that I would let my fear control me and not talk to people and try to make friends and just be kind of alone, even though I would have wanted to make friends.
But as I look at those concerns and reflect on the past year in school, I can safely say that I made some really amazing friends this year at school, even if I had moments of doubt right before these connections happen. I remember my parents leaving after dropping me off and me talking to my roommate and she was talking about how she knew all these people already and I knew maybe two from my high school, whom I did not know really well. I suddenly got very nervous that I would not make friends because people were already be in their friend groups from high school and that even my roommate was in that situation and I would be alone. Now looking back this was not the case at all. Later that night after me and my roommate ate dinner, we stopped to see a few girls that she had met at orientation and we hung out with them all night. Suddenly my nerves were gone and I realized I might actually make some friends, and the next day we met up with them again and more girls from their orientation group and now I have an amazing group of friends.
We all hung out all the time and I was relieved and so thankful for making this many friends in a short period of time. Then just when I thought I was lucky enough, the next week my roommate and my friend were going to a meeting for Dance Company, I had never danced before but had done cheerleading my whole life, but I decided to go with them to the meeting. I was so nervous because I thought I would not fit in but my fears were again wrong and I made some really good friends there too.
Now moral of this long blog post was that so much can change in such a little time, that even if you are afraid of making friends, you eventually will. Now I am not saying it will happen suddenly because obviously it took time to form these relationships with people but do not let fear stand in the way of making friends because if I had let fear stand in the way of doing things I would not have made great friends and have the great memories I have now. I hope you all enjoyed this post and I cannot wait to share more of my life with you guys!
Much love,
Ally
I will always be your friend. I am so glad you joined Dance Company babes ❤️
ReplyDeleteIly💕
DeleteHey - it's Evelyn again :) This part really stuck with me: "I remember my parents leaving after dropping me off and me talking to my roommate and she was talking about how she knew all these people already and I knew maybe two from my high school, whom I did not know really well."
ReplyDeleteI literally could have written that part myself because that's almost exactly like my freshman move-in experience. However, mine was a little bit different. After I moved all my stuff in, my roommate met up with some of her friends from orientation, and I was actually left alone in the room. It was so scary and unsettling. Being from a small town in CT, I literally had NO ONE from my high school.
I actually had a very hard time making friends my freshman year, and actually considered transferring. I remember one time my mom came to pick me up for a weekend in the middle of October and I just cried and cried in the car because I wasn't making any friends and I felt so alone and unmotivated. (Dance Company is what made me stay!) Making friends in college is hard, and I think it's easy to forget how hard it really is especially if you come from a place where you already knew everyone. I definitely think you hit the nail right on the head though -- the best thing anyone can do is give it time, and it will happen :)
Hey Evelyn, I am sorry you experienced it is definitely hard sometimes and everyone experiences something different. I am also from a small town so people being from my town was slim to none. I am glad you found your place and stayed giving it time is definitely what is needed in some cases!!! :)
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