I don’t think I have any friends.

Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. I do have a girlfriend, and I have a select few close friends. But I still feel very alone. I’m in college going into my second year, and it doesn’t feel like I’ve made any friends so far. The few close friends I have are all from high school. And even though we’re close, it feels like I never get invited to do anything with them. They all have their separate friend groups to do stuff with, and I feel like I’m on the outskirts. When I hangout with them, it’s always me organizing everything, or asking if I can come over.

It has been a month back to college already, and I have not been invited to anything. Invited to hangout, invited to a party, nothing.

So I’ve asked myself why can’t I make friends? It feels like when I try to talk to people it’s just incredibly awkward. This is a problem that I think I’ve realized more or less the entirety of my life. I think that I just don’t know how to talk to people. I think there’s fundamentally something wrong with myself. I think at some point in my development I just missed the part where we learned how to make friends. Just simply forgot how to actually talk to people. This is a very deep issue that I’ve actually put a lot of thought into. And I definitely don’t think I have the solution to it yet. Looking at some people, they just feel magnetic. Like anyone they talk to they just get along with. While for me, it depends on who I’m talking to. If it’s an extrovert then it still feels awkward, but at the very least it doesn’t feel like they hate me. With anyone who just isn’t in the top 10% outgoing, it feels like they want absolutely nothing to do with me. Maybe it’s my confidence. I have a lot of talking insecurities because I have a small stutter. I look absolutely stupid when I stutter and I sound even worse. I’ve been made fun of quite a bit growing up and it really has not helped. I also think I constantly look stupid. I think my face is very weird looking, I think my hair is constantly fucked up for some reason, I think I have some weird BO whenever I sweat even a little (even with showers, deodorant, and cologne), and I think my clothes just look incredibly awkward on me. This is definitely me over thinking, but I’m just not certain how I can be confident when I have a mindset like this. I’ve tried changing a lot of things so that these issues go away, but so far it’s just a very hard fix. I feel like with most people I talk to, I can get a conversation going. Sometimes it’s very one directed, but oftentimes it goes fine and we become “cool.”

This is the extent of my life, becoming “cool” with people. This is really what defines all of my high school life. There were countless people that when I saw I would say Hi to, or be excited to be in their class. But this was the extent of it. We don’t talk outside of school, we don’t hangout, there’s nothing there. Even with these people, when I try to reach out, it seems like it’s just one sided. It just feels like I can’t get people to like my personality enough to want to hangout with me.

I guess I just wrote this to rant. The issue is that this isn’t really the most pressing issue. I’m a lot more concerned with studying and my career than I care about my social life. But at times I feel extremely depressed. When I want to go out and do something but I don’t have anyone to do anything with. Or just the realization that I don’t have any connections at all. I have a girlfriend, but that isn’t always the best substitute for friends. We’re not interested in the same things, and so it’s very hard to talk about things that I like with her.

I guess? I don’t know, I’m just wondering if people have struggled with anything similar or just have advice for me. I’m not sure what I should do and I feel very sad and alone.