I feel ashamed to have to write this, but it has come to the point where I have only one close friend, and 0 acquaintances. It's hard because I'm in between, and don't really belong to a group - I have always felt left out but moreso now. I am 24 years old and going in to my second year of university... Whilst most people my age are working, I am surrounded by 18/19 year olds at uni which makes it harder to socialise.
My first year was good as I made friends in my halls, although a few of them were bitchy. I wasn't enjoying my course so I switched to a new course and so I've just done first year again. I lived with my friends from halls in second year - we found a house together and there were 6 of us living together. I planned to join a few societies and get out there more this year, but something bad happened at the beginning of October regarding a close family member and I spiralled in to depression. I was behind with my work this year due to this so it would have been impossible to keep up with societies, and really the least of my worries was finding new friends at that time. My housemates weren't really there for me and I have just completed my year with less friends than I had before, probably a grand total of 0. Next year I will be moving in with my cousin.
When I was 16 I had a best friend who many people thought was a bad influence on me but we did a lot together and then I had a lot of other friends. Me and my best friend fell out over something petty and hadn't spoken since then but we have always been civil to one another when we bump in to each other. 6 years on, and she found out what I had been going through and has messaged me on a few occasions offering her support which I am so grateful for. I often think of her and miss her but I'm not sure if it'd be weird to message her and ask her to meet up after so long? There's also a few other people I'd like to reach out to but again it's been 3 - 4 years since the last time I saw them so I don't know if it'd be seen as desperate.
The annoying thing is that I don't have one group of friends - there are people I know and have once been close to scattered around but I could probably never put them all in one room at the same time and expect them to get on together. At the moment, I have 1 good friend back home and that is all. I do have a lot of family, auntys that I am close to and I am family oriented so I guess that's good.
I've joined meetup.com and may go to a few meetups and suss it out, but I've heard very mixed reviews as it is viewed as weird for younger people to meet up randomly through a site. I'm just wondering if university is my only option to get myself out there and actually form friendship groups? I have two years left & I really cannot afford to screw it up this time otherwise I'll be stuck in this rut for the rest of my life. I always look to the future regarding friendships - as I lost friends over the years back home I looked forward to making friends at university, but as that hasn't been successful yet I now think I should wait until I start work, but once that comes around I'll probably look to something else. So I need to start now and stop making excuses for not having good, meaningful friendships. I always think it's fine at the moment because I want to work hard and friendships would be a distraction, but really I would make my life a hell of a lot easier if I had frien ds as it can only be a healthy distraction away from work.
I feel incredibly jealous seeing posts on FB from people who are still close friends with their school mates going on holidays together regularly, whilst I'm sat in my room all day every day. I should be out there living my life. I also feel like no one will want to date me seeing as I have no friends...
Any advice, past experiences, words of support? Thanks
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