The Secret to Making Friends at University? Ask Introverts

In my first year of high school, all of my friends lived in my phone. It was the first full school year affected by COVID-19, which meant we were at school in person one day—only taking one four-hour class while we were there—and online again the next. I’d been swept into a friend group practically by accident through class group chats or face-masked icebreakers, and once we’d formed our little group, we stuck together like it was life or death.

We texted constantly: while our cameras were off in school Google Meets, as we sat two metres apart in socially distanced classrooms, and in the middle of eating lunch alone in our separate houses. It’s a lot easier to talk about yourself over the internet—you feel less judged, even if the people you’re talking to wouldn’t have judged you in the first place. I think I was probably more forthcoming in those first weeks of ninth grade than I’d ever been with people before. And the feeling was mutual—despite the fact we didn’t all meet in person for an entire year.

School went back to normal halfway through tenth grade. Even then, I stuck to my familiar friends. The way we’d grouped up over the lockdowns seemed unbreakable. I’d gotten so close to these people over such a short time that doing everything all over again, this time the long way, seemed utterly unmanageable. And there was no reason to switch it up—we got along in person too. These friends knew me better than anyone else, and it was largely due to our weird, codependent COVID-19 bonding and subsequent resistance to change.

The last night before I moved away to university, my friends and I made pasta for dinner. Nothing special, just meat and sauce and noodles. I remember sitting around the table, thinking about how, in a week, we’d all be in different places, relegated to friendship via Instagram DMs once more. It was surreal, being surrounded by the best friends of my life, people I’d gone to school with every day for the past four years, knowing that I’d only see them a handful of times in the coming months. At least I knew we wouldn’t lose touch, given that being friends virtually was part of what had made us so close in the first place. I wasn’t worried about losing the friends I already had.

It was just the fact that I’d have to make new friends.

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I’ve always been introverted, so going out and talking to new people is traditionally not my strong suit. I could say pretty much anything around my old friends. I didn’t have to worry about being perceived in any specific way, because they knew me. We could just talk, and I didn’t want to have to learn how to do that with other people. What if I got to university and everybody thought I was weird? Or even worse—what if I got there and everybody was normal?

On my first night, we all had a meal together in the dining hall. Most of our residences only held about twenty people apiece, so each building could fit around one long table. My roommate and I had been texting for a couple months before school started, so at least I had one touchstone in the sea of unfamiliar faces. We sat next to each other and across from the strangers who would be our neighbours for the next eight months. To my surprise, conversation was easy. The heavy weight of “What if they don’t like me?” lifted slightly from my shoulders. It really does feel like everybody is your friend in the first few weeks of university—just like during COVID-19, you make friends fast. Everybody is leaving their homes for the first time and trying to find a new community as quickly as possible. Where things differ, though, is that you can branch out. You’re surrounded by peers, and this time you’re not stuck behind a screen for the whole year. After the first night, I spoke to the people I’d sat across from only a handful of times. They had all made different friends while I was still trying not to get lost on campus.

Soon, I found myself looking out over the scattered groups of people who all seemed to know each other better than they knew me, and I felt a little . . . adrift. It was as if people were already making the best friends of their lives, and somehow I’d missed it. Everybody looked like they’d had the practice at making new friends that I hadn’t. Everybody looked more sociable, more confident, better at connecting. Even less than a month into the first year, it felt like I’d been locked out.

The thing is, though, I’m pretty sure everybody feels that way. Other people aren’t better at making friends; they just know we’re all at the same place. As the year went on, I did make friends. It sort of snuck up on me. Like on this one day, I was chatting with some people on the landing between floors of our residence and then realized we’d been standing there for over an hour. I got to know them, and I started to be able to separate the person from the daunting monolith of people. The friends I made weren’t all in on some secret. They were nervous, they made mistakes, they thought about things too much—and obviously, so did I. Eventually, I realized that the ball was in my court to let these people know that I wanted to be around them too. We went from accidentally talking on the stairs for an hour to trying out new sushi restaurants downtown, to watching movies on a hastily rigged projector in somebody’s room, to wallowing in self-pity together about not having studied enough for exams.

My friends from high school were a huge part in helping me figure this out. They were also having their own difficulties, whether it was with making friends or just trying not to fall asleep in lectures. They helped me shift my perspective, reminding me that I’m not the only person in the world who’s ever had a problem with something—and it really did help to remember that I’d made friends before, during COVID-19, a situation that had also felt impossible. Even if every single person at my new school hated my guts, I would always have old friends to fall back on.

Basically: Don’t count yourself out of the game if you haven’t met your soulmates by the second week of school. You’re not a lost cause if you aren’t extroverted. This is everybody’s first time away from home, and they’re all overthinking it too—they won’t bite if you strike up conversation in the laundry room. Chances are, if you’ve been waiting for them to say hi, they’re probably thinking the same thing about you.