Ask HN: I'm making like 0 friends at college, how to fix it?
I talk to some people in classes and we're pleasant to each other but haven't gotten beyond acquaintance with any of them. I know some people from a club I'm in but don't see them outside of that. It doesn't help that I'm a computer science major and I don't have a lot of interests that CS majors have (anime, video games, social media, etc.) Advice on how to connect better with people?
I'm busy a lot of the time so don't think about this. But I've heard everybody talking about Halloween costumes in the past few days and realized I don't need one cause I'll be sitting inside alone on Halloween. I'd like to start fixing this but don't know how.
Edit: some people have asked, I'm a sophomore. Seems like a lot of people already formed their social groups last year.
217 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 187 ms ] threadSo, to get practical, I would suggest: just show up. Show up in class, show up at clubs, show up at extra-curricula activities. Do it long enough, be honestly engaged, and you'll be surrounded by friends you'll keep for all your life.
Open up and be vulnerable with people i.e. I finding x difficult at the moment but I’m figuring things out.
Look up Charisma on Command on YouTube. It helped me.
The most critical thing is to be intentional about it, and to set aside time. Like any goal, it almost certainly won't happen if you do not set aside time and energy to work on it.
Relationships are also often something that grow over time, rather than a lightning bolt that hits you all at once. Try asking who wants to go to a second location and get dinner or coffee or whatever the next time you see folks from your club, or the next time a tutorial is wrapping up. Do it again the next week. I am sure that even if you don't believe you have things in common, you'll be able to do what everyone does to some extent: listen anyway, and eventually you'll find common ground.
2. Play sports... (recreational/intramural), coed better.
3. Join a gym, and start exercising/living healthy
4. Make sure your hygiene is on point and dress well/better than the average. Also pay attention to your grooming and other habits (eg. eating habits). Perhaps there is something that is turning off people.
5. Try to invite people to events/things. Event just lunch at the school cafeteria. Try to form a habit to have lunch with the same people/group and eventually people will invite you to things.
Some of the folks that I went in college that had trouble making friends, apart being socially akward, had some kind of basic hygiene/grooming problem. You are not going to get invites to parties if you look like crap, and have body odor. Nobody will tell you why.
Make sure these basic stuff are covered, then the other thing is just talking regularly to the same people, having lunch with them regularly, etc...
Also, don't beat yourself up, as many people are in the same boat as you. This year is kind of unusual, as covid is still a concern and most people will be more reserved as usual.
Good luck,
It's really common in social settings where multiple people want the same thing, but are too nervous to ask the other person. A lot of people don't like making the decision or will wait for someone else to say something, but that usually results in nothing. In the end, there's no real downside to asking.
It can be really hard to meet people, but college gives you constant opportunities to, so there's plenty to take advantage of.
Chat with your class mates and once you've had regular conversation with them a few times, ask them to grab food or study together. The amount of friends I've made from study groups was huge, definitely recommend.
Then talk to people. That is literally all it takes in college.
If you stay in your dorm room night after night, especially in your freshman year, you are going to have a hard time connecting with people. You need to get out more.
1 night during the week, 1 night on the weekend are for meeting people.
You can study / homework / club stuff the rest of the time.
Things ended up improving for me and overall I had an amazing time in college. What worked for me was trying to stay open when meeting people. I took some risks and asked people to hang out 1:1 and in small groups. There were a lot of these hang outs with people that never turned into anything in the first year. It wasn’t until my second year I really made some good friends and it came through trial and error.
I also don’t have any of those interests. I went to a big school and one of my realizations is that it was on me to find my own place there. I tried a bunch of clubs before I found one or two that stuck but through those activities that DID stick I made my best friends.
Keep your head up, know that the transition will take time, and keep trying new things on the social front.
Your statement “haven’t gotten beyond acquaintance” kind of implies some general social awkwardness/anxiety. You seem to be branding yourself as an outsider looking in. I think that’s relatively common and I’ve been there, it’s just an observation.
You don’t have to have a lot of interests in common with people to enjoy their company. But if you are routinely looking for reasons that you don’t belong in a group, you’ll keep finding them.
Stay authentic to yourself. Seek out people that make you happy. You do not have to be best friends with someone to enjoy their company.
One “trick” is study groups. These can be turned into friends groups by subtle directions like meeting in a pub or suggesting retiring to a pub when it gets tiring, or the classic “meet at mine; I’ll cook”.
Even if these people are lightweight friends, they may be the people who eventually introduce you to those you will be close even beyond uni.
Another angle is to volunteer for those who help international students on exchanges and things. Students who do exchanges tend to interesting people!
More practically, I think the easiest way to meet people if you aren’t very outgoing is to join organizations. There should be groups for inter mural sports, volunteering, international clubs, or day hiking trips. May not meet new people every time but eventually you’ll connect with some. Your situation is a lot more common than you might think.
Log off, touch some grass. Put yourself out there. Once you get a few people around you, it's relatively easy to leaver yourself into other friends groups.
> But I've heard everybody talking about Halloween costumes in the past few days and realized I don't need one cause I'll be sitting inside alone on Halloween. I'd like to start fixing this but don't know how.
Just say yes to the next offer you get, you'll only make friends if you expose yourself to other humans. HN is unlikely to be the place where you make real friends.
Specifically about the parties: You can invite yourself easily enough to things - just get them talking about it (i.e. "oh I hear you're having a Halloween party, anything cool planned?") - if you sound interested and talk for a while most people will invite you.
The only way to get good at social interactions is to keep putting yourself in social settings.
1. This kind of thing doesn’t come naturally for a lot of people (myself included)
2. It doesn’t always work even if you do it well. Perhaps the other people are also quite shy.
So the important thing is practice, and to kind of brace yourself going in: “If it doesn’t click with these specific people, I don’t care. This is a practice run and I’ll practice again until it works.”
I’ve found that, paradoxically, one of the things that makes relationships hard is wanting them. When you really desire a friendship or other relationship with someone new, you tend to come off as over-eager or awkward, and that’s off-putting for the other person. Conversely when you can be casual and unconcerned, it makes you seem confident and happy, which other people are drawn to.
So there really is a “fake it till you make it” thing going on, which is quite hard to learn IMO, but can be learned with practice.
Though I guess getting mad about it might be a valid reason to tell somebody to touch grass
Find that genuine interest in others' interests.
You see them on the opposite bank and it's a lot easier to build a bridge cooperatively.
Circumstances demand a personal approach, so no one can tell you how to build a bridge, only that you must.
While they should be saying yes to opportunities to connect with people, I'm not sure if this particular advice is great. If I was in a similar situation to the author of the post, I would find this particular advice demoralizing. It assumes the author of the post has what they are stressing they do NOT have - friends and offers of things to do. If you are not connecting with people you will not magically have offers from people.
It's about forcing yourself to get out there in controlled settings - clubs, volunteer, meetups, classes, and other places people are actively seeking connection.
Many social activities assume you're showing up with friends. If you have none, they're akward and depressing.
It is hard to establish anything meaningful of a connection with casual interactions, and expecting to just "party/play hard" with people you don't really know is putting the cart before the horse. First you must work hard together.
I'd suggest joining a Crossfit gym or similar. I've had great success meeting people within the context of group workouts. It has regular class schedules, and provides a way to ease into social interactions at your own pace as you'll be around the same people regularly. Often this leads to opportunities to do things together outside of the classes.
Additionally, there are likely individuals with similar disinterest in the common activities you mentioned in you CS classes. Finding opportunities to work with someone on class assignments, studying or projects together would fall in the "shared struggle" category.
I definitely agree with the shared struggle aspect and add the activity should also have "moments of down time" where you're still "doing" the activity, but you're sort of at a point of waiting. These are the moments where you get to find out someone's life, like if they've got a kid that plays a musical instrument or new policies at their own jobs.
One simple thing we did early on was simply ask some of the other people "what are you doing tonight?" after the class. At least at the college age, there's always a chance a handful of people will be down for going to a bar or pool hall afterwards.
Yes, and 1) in this context the stakes are lower, it's not some big planned event or party. And 2) You're not trying to meet people or start from 0 at a party amongst strangers; these are people you already know you're just out having a good time.
later i joined a volunteer group that helped students get summer jobs.
all my friends came from groups like these...
Many of my closer work relationships have come from venting about aspects of the company we didn't like. And, echoing the other responders, many of my closest friends from college were those that I psetted with at 4am.
Advice to the OP: get involved with a club or activity that has challenging aspects (e.g. a service club or a sports club) rather than a shared interests club. Don't worry too much about not being too interested in "traditional CS" things - just be open to sharing and learning about your non overlapping interests.
Have two "forever" friendships over 20 years, where we talk almost every day & have been around for good & bad in each other's lives, even though on different continents for past 12 years.
You have to believe me when I profess that such friendships are 'forged over blood, sweat, rum and tears'.
you shouldn't isolate yourself based on differences in interests. find something you might possibly find interesting in someone and ask them about that and explore deepening the conversation. friendships are not only about finding "another you" but also discovering people who are different and might expand your perspective
EDIT: if you are down voting this i am curious to see why you think that this is bad advice. i genuinely think it is good advice and empathize with the person that asked this
Do you like coffee or tea? There's an okay chance there's a club for that (met many friends and a girlfriend through coffee club).
How about your school's radio station? Wide variety of people and new music (made long lasting friends at mine).
Maybe club sports? They're taken fairly casually (milage my vary) and you're going to be interacting with people the whole time.
I'm sure there are at least a few clubs that you'd be interested in. The thing that makes clubs easy to approach is that they're fairly structured and they're all about getting new members. You can go every week and you know these people share an interest and are open to new people, which is a great starting place.
Good luck with everything. Time management and planning your goals will get you very far in college. Plan to meet people and work it into your schedule in different ways, whether it's a club, chatting with dorm neighbors, or having a study group. I'm sure you'll do fine.
Get to know the people you live with, they are right there!