Difficulty making friends?

I am in my first year of university, feeling comfortable with my studies but feel I am missing out on the social life. I do go to societies and talks, but I don't actually know anyone there. At the moment I am feeling a bit low, because it feels like everyone has at least one friend. I did speak to people at the beginning and felt like I had 'friends', but I was the only one making an effort. I always tried to involve them, but they never tried to involve me. Now I've just given up trying. Another thing that makes it difficult is I don't like partying or drinking - feel pretty lonely.

Reply 1

S.H.Rahman

Tough situation there bud :L

All I can really suggest is trying to be a bit more outgoing and starting conversations with people you've never spoken to before at your societies and follow that up by texting them. That should hopefully be the start of a good friendship :biggrin:

Reply 2

Re:Mel

I'm in the same situation, the first 1-2 weeks I felt like I had found a group of people, but now everyone kind of just went their way and I'm left alone. I also tried to go to talks & societies, gave my best to be outgoing, but everyone there seemed to already have a group, so my efforts were unsuccessful.
So I'm feeling you, feeling pretty down rn. But I guess it's only been a few weeks and we have to hang in and keep on trying to start conversations - even it that seems really discouraging atm :frown:

Reply 3

mollyoo

It took me 4 whole months to make friends at uni.... so don’t be disheartened by this. I don’t like to go out either so I literally only saw people at lectures.

Reply 4

HertsExRep

Original post by Pepper*

It can be hard to settle into social life at Uni. I know it seems like everyone is already settled, and everyone already has their "group," but trust me when I say that is not true. Especially in the beginning, people stick together but then towards second semester, realize that it was a panicked attempt to belong and then friendship groups get mixed up again!

It's great you're going out to societies and talks--keep that up! Try as much as you can to muster the courage to speak to others, even if they're in big groups. Sometimes it's in big groups that you can actually have the most success when socializing with new people--in big groups there's usually one or two "lead" outgoing people who can smooth your introduction, and it's much less pressure to come up with talking points all the time because your conversational responsibility, so to speak, is a much smaller fractional quantity than if it was you and one other person. That being said, do make sure to contribute, and then as the group becomes smaller or breaks up, try to ensure you stay talking to one or two people that you thought, whilst speaking and listening in the big group, might be interesting and similar to you.

Don't underestimate people on your course either--show up five minutes before class and make small talk with the person sitting next to you, whether you start off by commenting on the weather or the coursework you've just handed in.

Drinking and partying is not required to socialize at uni. What's required is open-mindedness, confidence, and the ability to speak up for yourself!