"Lone"
What does it feel like to have no friends in college?
“Find a partner.” “Break into small groups,” says the teacher.
I dread those words...
I look around me. Soon enough, I begin to accept the fact that I will be working on my own again.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Stop being so negative. Just talk to someone.
This is not high school.
I glance over to the people sitting next to me and begin to introduce myself.
Did they hear me? Or was my voice too soft?
I smile, and try again but there is still no response.
What do I say when the teacher asks me what my group had discussed?
Do I, make up different viewpoints and pretend I had a group?
Or do I admit that in the past ten minutes when everyone had managed to find a partner, that I just couldn’t find one?
I am lost for words. I feel embarrassed, almost rejected but I don’t let that feeling take over my day.
I won’t.
It’s the first day of uni. Why am I feeling like this?
Surely, I will be able to find a friend by the end of my five-year degree.
__
Two years later, nothing has changed.
I keep trying to make friends and talk with the people around me, but I know I am unwelcome.
By now, people have already formed their friendship groups. It seems as though it is too late to intrude.
So I walk into my 10am lecture, with my latte in my hand. I take the corner seat at the back few rows, where only a few people sit.
I look around me, and I see people everywhere, talking, talking...
The day has just started.
I take a sip of my iced soy latte but I end up wiping my cup clean. Then I remind myself that I am here for this lecture.
I am not here for the people.
When lunch comes around, I walk over to furthest cafe on campus.
I look around and eventually find a spot that I like. I can see people eating and I can see people chatting but I can't seem to hear where this sound is coming from.
Why do I care?
I put my earphones on and begin scrolling social media.
Classes end, and I go straight home.
It does not matter if I have to drive in traffic. There is no reason to hang around.
I want to be out of here because at home, I know that I have somebody to talk to.
Do I?
Sometimes, even the people who love you most cannot make you feel any less lonely.
—
They tell you to stop pitying yourself, and it feels as though they do not care.
It feels as though you are overreacting but that’s because they don’t know how what that feeling is like.
They don’t know how it feels to be ignored.
They don't know how it feels to be rejected, and not know the reason why.
They don’t know how it feels to have no friends.
“What about your high school friends?”
I think for a minute, and it doesn’t take me long to reply.
Surely I had one or did I have a few? Do I even have any at all?
The people I called my friends, I now know were just my classmates.
They could not care less about me.
I’m always there, supporting them through their problems but that is where the road ends.
There has never been a time or a day, that they have ever bothered to ask me how I was doing.
If I don’t talk first, we won’t talk.
If there is nothing in it for them, then there is nothing there.
But what about that one friend that I keep telling myself I have? What about her?
I am again, lost for words.
I do not know how to answer that but wouldn’t you think that a real friend would make time to see you once a year?
That’s what I thought.
So they stopped asking me about my high school friends, and started asking me other questions.
“Do you really wanna be friends with those types of people?”
“Don’t worry, they’re not worth it.”
“You’ll find a friend if you keep trying.”
I’m hearing it again and again but in what way do they think that they are helping?
They don’t understand me.
People talk to them or at least not talk bad about them.
In high school, people I thought were my friends would talk about me and make rumours behind my back but I never knew why.
“They’re probably just jealous of you,” they say.
I think for a moment but that can’t be the reason.
They have everything they want, so what else could it be?
Here I am feeling sorry for myself, or could I just be telling the truth?
—
They say university is where you make lifelong friends but I know now that you can’t “make” friends.
They say friendships come naturally.
They say you shouldn’t have to try so hard to talk to someone who doesn’t even care what your name is but then again that person doesn’t just walk into your life on its own.
Am I that introverted?
Or could it just be that everything I have experienced has made me reclusive?
—
I don’t think that I will ever find an answer, and sometimes in life, there just isn’t one.
I can not just put a stop to my emotions.
People need to cry.
Sometimes I feel depressed about it.
Sometimes I feel lonely because we all need a friend.
So if you ever see a guy or a girl, sitting alone in the classroom or at the cafeteria.
If you ever see someone who is alone anywhere...
Don’t just leave them alone, even if they seem like they want to be.
Ask them to join you.
An open heart and a friendly smile can do a lot more for a person than you think.
It could brighten up their day.
After all, we are all just looking for a place in this world.
Whether we like to admit it or not, nobody wants to feel alone.
Nobody wants to be alone.
That isn’t the way we were meant to be...
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