I am an 18-year-old male, and a freshman in college. I have friends, and I can make new friends fairly easily. However, I never want to make close friends with anybody.
It always seems to me that we're too different, and I just can't get any closer to them. There is nobody around that thinks along the same lines as I, or even somebody that shares my aesthetic tastes. I know it's selfish and immature to want a friend who is just like me, but I can't help feeling lonely sometimes. Is it really too much to ask to find somebody that I can be comfortable with, somebody who I can relax and talk about anything with? I have a girlfriend, but even though we are intimate, we hardly have anything in common. There's nothing wrong with that, we have a strong relationship and don't let our differences harm are love. Nonetheless, I often yearn for a friend that shares my interests.
I know this is the typical teenage emo "nobody understands me" feeling, and I should just get over it. Humans are all very different, and I should accept that. Yet I still needed some place to rant. It is the curative power of discourse I seek.
I feel the same way, OP.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to feel this way.
It's easy for so many more common types of people, who share the same interests, think along the same lines, like the same stuff, etc. They're very lucky. It's a wonderful thing to have friends who share so much stuff with you, and I think it's a part of human nature to want to have people like that.
Not to turn your topic into something about myself, but I frequently see other people as being deeply limiting - I hate having friends who will avoid certain conversation topics, or outright act like a dick when I mention certain things. I guess this falls under the same idea as wanting someone to talk to about anything.
Other than that I've done pretty much the opposite, I've let shitty people get close to me.
I'm a 23-year-old senior in college, and while I wish I could tell you that it gets better, it really doesn't.
On a small campus, the population can tend toward homogeneity -- good if you fit in with the majority, bad if you don't. For example, I attend a Catholic college, and many of the students are pretty hard-core about their faith. I'm an atheist. Generally, things go about as amoothly as you'd expect. I've also known a few GLBT students, and they haven't had the best of times, either.
On a larger campus, the population tends to be more diverse, but your likelihood of encountering any one student drops substantially. Many of the big state universities are like cities unto themselves -- you can spend your entire college career flitting about like a social butterfly and still come into contact with only a small fraction of the total student body.
Either way, if you feel you don't fit in now, it's not likely to get better. Best thing is to either try and make friends off-campus or try and accomodate your collegiate peers. I've chosen the second route, even though it means that I have to be less than completely honest about my life and who I am.
>>1 I have that friend, met him since i was 4..and yeah it's great. BUT i never had a girlfriend..see where i'm getting? Although i would never trade,nothing will really make us happy, we always want more and more..seeking yet never finding.
Anywayz, I hope you meet someone
goodluck
>>4 You're going to a small, Catholic institution. What did you expect? Try looking Outside of your insitution.
Facebook is your friend, people. No, seriously. Think deeply about your interests, favorite movies, books, etc. Fill out your profile. Click on the hyperlink interests, books, etc, and find people with similar interests int eh same city or school as yourself.
>>Facebook is your friend, people. No, seriously.
Aye, but then prospective employers can check up on every detail that you post.
At the TV station where I work, one of the reporters recently did a story on just this phenomenon (Facebook, MySpace, etc.). The statistics he dug up about how many employers these days actually check up on that stuff, those were not encouraging at all.
I feel for you OP. It scares me how close I am to being in your situation; if it weren't for my off-campus friends, I would be miserable.
My best advice is to keep meeting people, and searching for someone you can relate to. Then, once you do, do your damndest to insert yourself forcibly into their social life (while being subtle and non-annoying, of course).
>>8 That's what profile privacy settings are for. I have ti set up so that the only things that can be seen by people I haven't friended or sent messages to would be my name, where I'm from, my picture, and if I'm online. People I have sent messages to get two more features or so. Everything else is friends-only.
Personally, I can't bring myself to click on other people's profiles or send them messages - it would be like coming up to someone you don't know and saying "Will you be my friend?", I closed my Facebook a while ago because it was embarrassing to have no friends.