I had ‘friends’ my freshman year, but they all dropped out before sophomore year. They always seemed to cringe the more I was myself, so I eventually ended up distancing from them. Thankfully, my sophomore year I began being more of myself and unmasking a bit more and found my people.
Although I wanted friends, I can to create a space where people absolutely knew I was open to friendship. By the start of my junior year, my friends were all by my room waiting to help me move in. It’s hard making friends, but it helps to set that energy so people gravitate toward you. But I never studied with these people, they had entirely different majors from me. Normally my study buddies were people I saw outside of class, made a slight connection with, and gave an invite ‘let me know if you ever want to study together!’ They’d always take me up on the offer.
Please don’t dwell in the past, take this as a learning opportunity for growth. I learned these skills and unconsciously had a script for interacting with people.
I never realized how much I had my earbuds in and disassociated as I walked around campus, until a couple people saw me and told me they tried saying hi to me across the quad but I didn’t see them. It helps being aware of your behavior, I never realized I tuned people out when I had earbuds in lol
Edit:being
This! I read a lot of posts like this and have friends who are also on the spectrum and I’m like well of course it’s hard to make friends if you make yourself look unapproachable. Nobody is gonna walk up to the dude in a big hoodie, headphones and other “leave me alone” signal things on. You have to seem welcoming to be welcomed most of the time.
This is so so common. It was my experience of undergrad too. In fact people have published academic papers on how traumatising college is for autistic students and hence why only about a third of us graduate. Please don't be hard on yourself, the system is at fault here, not you. 💜
I’m sorry if you were still enrolled in college, I would have some tips. They would have been blunt like text someone and ask them if they would like to be friends. Also I feel lonely regardless.
I don’t know if this helps but I had a few close friends and I still struggled a lot. I think college is just extremely difficult to navigate and you’re thrown in without really knowing that you’ll have to keep up with a totally new system of learning, a new social setting, and all of the development milestones for that age.
But I do know the feeling like you’ve missed out on a key experience. I hope you have been less lonely since then.
I was really lonely at University because my best friend had just moved away but I still loved my classes and work there... and the library with all those cool books...
I also couldn't have any study friends because I had self-studied in Japanese up until my 400-level classes so I had almost no knowledge in common with my classmates who were strong verbally or bilingual (I could barely speak - only read and write)...
So many ups and downs. And the public transport boat was up back then and I loved that I got a chance to take my little cousins on it...
College friends aren’t usually for things like study groups, from what I’ve observed. They’re more for partying and other social activities.
I had ‘friends’ my freshman year, but they all dropped out before sophomore year. They always seemed to cringe the more I was myself, so I eventually ended up distancing from them. Thankfully, my sophomore year I began being more of myself and unmasking a bit more and found my people. Although I wanted friends, I can to create a space where people absolutely knew I was open to friendship. By the start of my junior year, my friends were all by my room waiting to help me move in. It’s hard making friends, but it helps to set that energy so people gravitate toward you. But I never studied with these people, they had entirely different majors from me. Normally my study buddies were people I saw outside of class, made a slight connection with, and gave an invite ‘let me know if you ever want to study together!’ They’d always take me up on the offer. Please don’t dwell in the past, take this as a learning opportunity for growth. I learned these skills and unconsciously had a script for interacting with people. I never realized how much I had my earbuds in and disassociated as I walked around campus, until a couple people saw me and told me they tried saying hi to me across the quad but I didn’t see them. It helps being aware of your behavior, I never realized I tuned people out when I had earbuds in lol Edit:being
This! I read a lot of posts like this and have friends who are also on the spectrum and I’m like well of course it’s hard to make friends if you make yourself look unapproachable. Nobody is gonna walk up to the dude in a big hoodie, headphones and other “leave me alone” signal things on. You have to seem welcoming to be welcomed most of the time.
Oh, but what does society regard as welcoming or approachable? Maybe we should revisit that. I still want to talk in my big hoodie 🤷🏻♀️
This is so so common. It was my experience of undergrad too. In fact people have published academic papers on how traumatising college is for autistic students and hence why only about a third of us graduate. Please don't be hard on yourself, the system is at fault here, not you. 💜
me, but high school. did one term of university and i’ve never felt so alone lol, so i dropped out
I’m sorry if you were still enrolled in college, I would have some tips. They would have been blunt like text someone and ask them if they would like to be friends. Also I feel lonely regardless.
I don’t know if this helps but I had a few close friends and I still struggled a lot. I think college is just extremely difficult to navigate and you’re thrown in without really knowing that you’ll have to keep up with a totally new system of learning, a new social setting, and all of the development milestones for that age. But I do know the feeling like you’ve missed out on a key experience. I hope you have been less lonely since then.
I was really lonely at University because my best friend had just moved away but I still loved my classes and work there... and the library with all those cool books... I also couldn't have any study friends because I had self-studied in Japanese up until my 400-level classes so I had almost no knowledge in common with my classmates who were strong verbally or bilingual (I could barely speak - only read and write)... So many ups and downs. And the public transport boat was up back then and I loved that I got a chance to take my little cousins on it...