THE FRESHER BLUES: COPING WITH LONELINESS AND FINDING YOUR PEOPLE AT UNIVERSITY

The Fresher Blues:

Coping with loneliness and finding your people at university

words by: Charlotte Harries design by: Constance Cua

There’s a very big, but very well-kept secret about leaving home for the first time. Despite all of the acquaintances you’ll make, and all of the people you’ll meet in clubs or pubs and swap life stories with until the sun begins to rise, the first few months away from home are some of the loneliest days of university life. You move away from everyone you know and find yourself in a new city, friendships yet to be made, alone and unknown. It’s exciting, but inescapably lonely. Before university, I used to believe that I was capable of making friends with anyone: surely any two eighteen-year olds who had just found themselves in a new city would find something to bond over? Something deeper to talk about than: “So where are you from?” “…Surrey” “And what do you study?” “…Sociology” “Cool... I thought about doing that for A Level.” (I’d like to clarify that the person from Surrey who studies sociology and refuses to speak with more than one word at a time is purely fictitious and definitely not based on every other person I spoke to in the Talybont complex during my first semester.)

Sadly, it turned out I was horrendous at pushing conversation any further than this. My attempts normally involved references to the weather, post-box history (a favourite topic of mine which I hoped people might find endearing- they did not) or asking people what their favourite colour was. None of it broke the ice, and instead I built a reputation for being a bit socially challenged. Whilst I tried to keep up something of a manic pixie dream girl persona minus the charm or romantic appeal to my flatmates, in my room I would spend entire days and nights alone, hiding in my bed and feeling desperately unhappy, wishing for the good old days with the friends I’d had since nursery. Eventually, sometime in November and after a particularly bad week of seeing no one and doing nothing, I called my parents asking to go home. I had been defeated. I left Talybont North as I had entered: with no friends, and nothing to show for my time but some newfound vices and a hatred of circuit laundry. After a very lengthy Christmas break spent debating whether to admit defeat and drop out or to completely rebrand myself in the hope my flatmates would finally see me as a friend, I emailed residences and asked to move accommodation. I moved in to a new flat, in a new part of town, and – shocker – made some friends! People who would suffer me talking about post boxes, would remember to invite me to their plans, and actually added me to their group chat! Even in my third year, meeting these people and having the courage to move and try again is the thing I’m proudest of since leaving home. As time went on, I’d talk to these friends, as well as the strangers I’d meet on nights out and realise that all of us ex-freshers had gone through the same thing. Be it for a week or a semester, almost everyone I talked to had felt some level of alienation and loneliness when they first moved to university. Although no one admitted it at the time, there was an epidemic of loneliness, hitting much harder than the typical fresher’s flu we expected. If you’re feeling miserably lonely at the moment, please don’t suffer in silence. Talk to people about how you feel - it’s a much better bonding point than the weather, I promise. Join societies, volunteer or find a part time job, and take people up on their invitations. University is what you make of it. It’s tiring to search, but in a city of over four hundred thousand people, there are good friends to be found. When you move away from home your story becomes yours only. Your memories are no longer shared by your parents, or the friends you’ve had throughout school, and they can’t be confined to one city, town, or family home anymore. It’s a lonely transition, to realise that your life is fragmented between the old and the new, but it’s also incredibly exciting. You might not find your people for a little while, but if the Wetherspoons Chip Counting Society could find enough members to form a coherent group, you’re capable of making a friend.

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