Making friends

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Quistis

Um, I'm sorry if I'm being hypersensitive, but are you seriously proposing that being shy, in itself, is sufficient to require counselling? I appreciate that severe problems with social interaction would benefit from counselling/therapy, but... being shy?

For future reference, asking people if they use the University Counselling Service is, in my opinion, a bad idea - the Counselling Service is very careful to keep things confidential, so not even your tutors have to know you're going. So somebody receiving counselling, for whatever reason, may not wish to discuss that fact with you.

There's no need to be sorry. I shouldn't have asked then. I wasn't trying to offend anyone at all. I am a very shy person and it has really affected my lifestyle, in ways I am not that pleased with. So I was considering whether counselling was an option. (In fact, I have tried counselling before, but I guess I wasn't mature enough to accept and assimilate the advice properly.)

Reply 21

Cirsium

Have to agree with the others that being shy makes it hard to find a "group" although not necessarily hard to make friends - I'm the same, although most of my friends are musos who i know from orchestras etc. Problem being they tend to socialise e.g. after lectures and i'm not actually a muso :p:

I think the key thing is to make sure you go to as much as stuff as possible - spend time in the JCR and the college bar for a few weeks and then people get to think of you as a going-out person. If you slink away then after a while people stop inviting you to join them

Reply 22

Quistis

Eau

If your shyness is affecting your lifestyle to that extent, then I would recommend counselling. A good friend sought counselling because she suffers from social phobia, and the counselling service was able to do a lot to help her.

Sorry for the tone of my last post - I misunderstood the tone of yours :p:

Reply 23

Athena

Lex Talionis

It seems Fresher's week is your "make or break" time.

It took until about 3rd/4th week (when you've lived with people for a month!) before I really started to settle in tomy group of friends at college that I hang around with now. As Hoofbeat says:

Hoofbeat

Some of the people I spent my first few weeks with, weren't the people that became my good friends, and some of my closest mates I didn't meet until much later during the first term and sometimes even Hilary Term!

I agree with this, particularly with reference to friends I made through clubs - quite a lot of sports have Varsity matches in Hilary, and if you get on the team, this changes your friendships with older members of the club, as you get to know them and spend a lot more time with them. Joining the committee of a club or society can also have this effect - ditto going for the JCR or something like that.

Reply 24

mellow-yellow

I found that there were some people that I spoke to in freshers week but never spoke to again hehe! And at the same time, some who I now consider good friends. On top of that, quite a few of the friends I would see as being close friends now I didn't actually talk to until the last part of first term. And then made some more in 2nd and 3rd term. So I guess what you could conclude from this is that it completely depends on the circumstances and there's no set way to make friends or set way to behave. Just be yourself, make as much effort as possible without it becoming fake to chat to people - not just during freshers week but in general. I'm sure everything will be fine :smile: