**Introduction**
I (20 M) am about to be a junior in college, and my social skills have never been good. I was bullied during my time in elementary and middle school. Things were slightly better in high school because of marching band, but because I was such a bitter asshole, very few people hung out with me. When it comes to socializing, I saw college as an opportunity to start fresh, since only 4 people (none of hated me by the way) from my high school graduating class were going to the same university that I am attending. My communication and social skills did improve before starting my sophomore year of college (my whole freshman year was done virtually), because of my temporary summer job as a COVID-19 vaccine canvasser, and volunteer work at the homeless shelter (as of this day, I still do volunteer work).
**Problem #1**
I literally did most things that someone would tell a college student who struggles to socialize what they should do when trying to make friends, such as …
* Talking to classmates -> Basically, the students who I spoke to in my class ended up speaking to me only when they need homework answers. When it comes to this, I’m not an angel either, but I really expected to develop a friendship that’s more than just helping with assignments. I’m aware that I need to stop doing this as well.
* Joining extracurricular clubs -> Even though I am majoring in computer science, I did join a extracurricular program that’s based on electrical engineering. I tried socializing with people in that program, but either certain members didn’t want to engage in a conversation, or I did engage with them, but it never developed into a friendship. To make matters worse, the leaders of the club stopped having meetings after the first week of November.
* Sorority-> I choose not to join because it takes up too much time and I want to prioritize on my academic work, and accomplishing my goals.
I should also mention the reason why I don’t have friends from my current and previous job is because everyone is much older than I am. As for volunteering, many of the volunteers that come at the time I go only show up once or twice, and I never end up seeing them again. This problem really breaks my heart because on Instagram, I see groups of friends from my university take vacations to other parts of the country far from where the university is during breaks. I also see these groups of friends party a lot. Whenever I see this, I just ask myself, why can’t this be me, why can’t this be my college experience. Keep in mind most of these friend groups are athletes, so I would think they have it harder since balancing school and practices/games would be hard, but they are a million times happier than I am, and I’m not even depressed. Now, I am 100% aware that college is mainly about studying, and learning skills that will be useful to my future years. However, having a good social circle can make your college experience so much more enjoyable, and the amount of support I would receive would be tremendously high.
**Problem #2**
As if problem #1 wasn’t enough, I also tried to talk to girls that I had a crush on. During my whole sophomore year, I had 3 crushes, so I tried to talk to 2 of them on Instagram (by text), and one of them in-person. Here’s how it went …
* Crush #1 (October 2021) -> For this one, I realized that I am at fault here because I might’ve sound manipulative, even though this was clearly not what I intended. So I’m going to paraphrase what the DM was since I deleted the DM eventually, it went like “Hello Crush #1, we go to the same university, can we be friends?”. I followed her by the way, so I wasn’t stalking her, but she ended up blocking me.
* Crush #2 (December 2021) -> I went to a dance at the university’s Hispanic club (I’m Hispanic by the way), and this girl approached me and asked me to dance with her. So I obviously accepted and we were chatting as we danced, and about 10 minutes after dancing, she left to be with her friends. Well, she hasn’t came back to talk to me since then, so I just left her alone. But, when I was about to leave, I ask her for her Instagram (in front of her friend, since they wouldn’t separate). She was really hesitant, but gave it to me. Due to that hesitation that I observed, I decided to not talk to her anymore.
* Crush #3 (March 2021) -> I texted her through Instagram, and since I did learn my lesson from the first time, I texted her saying, “Hey, I thing I’ve seen you around campus, do you go to \_\_\_?” She never responded, but at least she didn’t block me. As a matter of a fact, we still follow each other, but I haven’t texted her anything else since then. What makes this even worse is that I might have a reputation of being a desperate creep since I tried to hit on so many girls in one year. Even if I don’t have this reputation, their friends will think I’m a desperate creep. I even posted pictures of myself on the “Am I Ugly” subreddit, and the majority of people said that I need to be leaner/lose some weight. Go to my profile and check the post out, you can be the judge.
**Questions**
With that being said, my questions to you Redditors is …
1. Where can I socialize with other college students, and how can I for a genuine friendship with other college students?
2. How can I start a valuable conversation?
3. If I were to have a crush on another girl, what can I do to get her to approach me?
4. I didn’t mention this, but my university has a bunch of out of state and international students, so how can I overcome cultural differences when socializing?