loneliness

My entire life I have been known to be amazingly terrible at being alone. I never learned to be at peace with my own company and if a year and a half lockdown via pandemic wasn't enough I think I have just cause to believe I am incapable of it. I started university early this month and this was the first time I have ever been 'alone'. I say alone very liberally, I chose a school only an hour away and visited home one weekend and my parents stopped by a few hours another. One of my closest friends from high school went to this university with me so I'm not wholly isolated either.

For the most part, things are going as well as can be expected. I was accepted into a highly competitive program and the workload is hectic at best sometimes, but I haven't started drowning yet even though I have had to get a tutor in one. That in and of itself was a big hit to my ego, I never dropped from a high to mid nineties average all four years of high school and one month into university and I struggled so profusely in one class that I knew this was the right decision, even though that makes the acceptance no easier. I know I'm the same person I always was and the material got harder rather than myself getting dumber, but it was a harsh transition and an ugly truth regardless.

I feel like I've been failing in the friend department. I've always been known to be highly extroverted and truly thought I would be able to find a good group of friends given enough time. I know I'm one month into a four year degree but when you're writing on a mental health forum on a Friday night rather than going to a party you originally intended to go to because your roommate felt too tired and you didn't feel comfortable or safe enough going alone it's easy to feel like you're missing out on so much. My friend that I came with met another girl who I knew years ago, incidentally enough while we were hanging out and I recognized her, I introduced them and now they're hanging out one-on-one. I know a good friend should be happy for her. I know it's important we have other friends and I know she asked me when they started hanging out together she asked if I was okay with it and I said yes and it's my own fault if I am silently upset with this other girl because of a falling out we had at the ripe old age of nine (I am well aware who either of us were at nine years old is hardly indicative of who we are now). It still hurts when I felt depressed and alone tonight and called her and they were together. It hurts knowing there's no one else I can call because everyone else was part of our friend group in high school and I don't trust that they won't report back to her. It's not either of their faults, it's not mine. But my feelings are my feelings and I can't shake them. I can't even have an evening chat with my parents because they're on a trip with a time difference. I've made friends with two of my roommates, but both of them have other friends and I can't help but feeling that I am a tertiary character. I keep on introducing myself to people, I've gone to parties, I've gone to school events, and feeling like we are breaking ground and in our next classes they sit somewhere else and I know it just needs time but I wish the universal laws would snap and skip to the part where if my friend or my two roommates aren't available to hang out I have a wide network of people, maybe even a partner, that I could chill with together. I arrogantly question what's so unattractive about me; I consider myself witty and smart and sociable and well spoken and even pretty. I feel like I keep looking for a flaw that makes me so meh. The people I chat with certainly don't seem to mind me, just don't care enough to come back either.

By the grace of having roommates I just had to excuse myself into the bathroom to cry from overwhelming feelings of loneliness because a shared room no longer affords me the privacy I learned to value all too late. I miss the life I had in high school in my sleepy hometown where everything was so predictable in what seemed to be stuffy but had endearing qualities in retrospect.

I know I'd have been sad if I stayed behind and heard all these stories of people living their lives in university. I know my visions of automatically growing a friend empire and going to parties and still being the top of my class was hysterical. I know how I feel now won't be how I feel tomorrow and I know that there will be so many more amazing times ahead. But tonight is apparently the night for a pity party and mourn times I can't go back to.

I'm so sorry and thankful to any souls who read this entire depressed tale. I felt this misery boiling up inside of me and felt this was the best substitute I had to my friends who are living much more currently exciting nights than me (Again, I'm not upset with them for doing what I wish I could be doing. Just frustrated by a thousand imagined slights and how my fantasy was never meant to be realized, or at least quite at the speed I hoped it would be). Things will get better, I just wish they would be.

me.