The Difficulties of Making Friends in College

Okay, so I had to write a personal narrative for my English class and I figured that since it had to do with college, I would upload it here as well. Please do not let this narrative scare you. Although not having friends in college sounds scary - and I kind of made it more scary in my essay, it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. I get my work done on time and I never have to worry about turning anything in late. And plus, if you need friends, I'll be your friend ^.^

p.s. I had to sound somewhat professional in the narrative so that's not how I really talk. I use a lot more sarcasm :) Without further adieu, here's my narrative:

Making Friends: An Unanticipated Hardship

I never thought that I would have a difficult time making friends in college. I had looked on several websites trying to prepare and they had all said that everyone is new in college so everyone would be looking to make friends. Because of those websites, I came into college with the notion that making friends would be easy. I was horribly mistaken.

I had always prided myself on being a nice, friendly person that people could easily approach. However, I hadn’t realized that one of the reasons I was previously so approachable was because everybody at my high school knew each other. I had a large class at my high school, there were over 500 people in my grade and over 2,000 in the school. However, I knew many of the upperclassmen as we had been in the same schools since elementary school and preschool. I hadn’t realized that I had become very comfortable with my long term friends and that I was out of practice with making new friends. I didn’t remember how to approach somebody I didn’t know or what level of sarcasm is appropriate for somebody I didn’t know. I also learned, maybe I didn’t look as nice as I was.

When I arrived at my first class, I sat down, hoping someone would sit next to me and we would have a good conversation. However, I slowly noticed that everybody was choosing to sit in every other seat. Nobody wanted to sit next to each other. It was as if everybody wanted it to be known that they didn’t want to be bothered. As I went through the next few days of class, I realized that this was the social norm in most of my classes. Nobody wanted to talk, or they only wanted to talk to people they had known in the previous semester. After this, I began to look for friends in other places.

I began joining clubs and attempted to join a club sport. However, everyone on the sports team was already friends and therefore, they only kept people that had previously been on the team. Some of the people in my clubs were just as antisocial as the ones in my classes. However, it seemed as though I was on my way to making friends in my clubs. But then the worst possible thing happened: I got sick.

Getting sick in college is a horrible thing. People tend to avoid you like the plague if at all possible. I know this because I would avoid people I saw coughing and I would see others go out of their way to avoid them as well. I went back and forth from my classes to my dorm and nowhere else, not even to eat. I was sick for about a week and a half and missed 4 or 5 club meetings. When I came back, it was as if nobody remembered me. I was long forgotten in favor of people who didn’t get sick. I began to give up hope of ever making friends in college. I began to wonder: Was I doing something wrong?

When I was younger I had braces. Because of this, I didn’t smile much as the novelty of braces wore off after the first year and a half. My mouth doesn’t turn up naturally so sometimes it will appear as if I am frowning when, in fact, I’m probably just thinking about school work or what was on television last night. I constantly get asked, even now, if something is wrong. My answer is always no while my head screams that it’s just my face. I began to realize, maybe I seem unapproachable like every other face in some of my classes. Maybe there were people like me in my classes who felt the same as me and thought nobody wanted anyone to sit next to them. So I began trying to force myself to smile in class, or at least not frown and be hunched over my phone like everyone else. But it wasn’t working. Was I ever going to have someone to talk to?

Towards the end of the semester, something strange happened: Somebody sat next to me and started talking. And it happened again and again and again. I don’t know if I began to seem more approachable or if people just got tired of sitting alone, but suddenly, I had people to talk to. I began to feel more comfortable in college knowing that it was possible for me to make friends.