#4: "Making Friends in College Is Hard. Should I Transfer?"

Lifelong friends aren't made overnight.

Hello Hayes,

I saw a few of your videos on TikTok, and there was something about your voice that made me feel like I could confide in you. I’m an 18-year-old college student who started attending a large, prestigious university this past August. The experience wasn’t at all like I expected. I envisioned myself forming lifelong bonds but unfortunately, these past several months have been a big struggle in that area.

There are a few people I hang out with occasionally, but I would describe my relationships with them more like “acquaintanceships” than anything else. I’ve been working very hard to make these existing relationships stronger and meet new people, with limited success. Although most of my classmates are kind, they seem preoccupied with the friends that they’ve already made and don’t seem enthusiastic about forming the deep, committed friendships I crave. I spend most of my time alone.

For a while, I blamed myself. I’m an introvert who struggles with social anxiety, making it difficult to reach out to others. But recently I’ve had a few interactions with upperclassmen that made me wonder if my experience is that unique. Perhaps, in a large university with tens of thousands of students, people occasionally slip through the cracks. 

A few days ago, I made the decision to submit a transfer application to a different university. This school not only has amazing programs in my major but is also significantly smaller. I’m hoping that if I get in, I’d be able to go and form closer relationships and have a stronger sense of community. However, this school is across the country, far away from my family and remaining high school friends. Transferring isn’t an easy process, and I know I would have to go through many struggles in an unfamiliar environment.

People have also been telling me that loneliness is a normal part of adulthood. I’m very new to this whole “adulthood” thing, but up until recently, I thought I was ready. Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I should give my current university more time — I haven’t even been here for a full year. Maybe my struggles are a normal part of the process, and my decision to apply to transfer is just a childish tantrum where I’m throwing my hands in the air crying “I give up!”

I’m not sure. The one thing I am certain of is that I don’t feel a strong connection to my current school, and I won’t be very sad if I leave. I feel like a boat, adrift in the sea, trying to find the right place to dock. What would you do in my situation? Am I wrong for wanting to leave?

Much Love,

Lost at Sea

Dear Lost at Sea,

Whenever I expect something to transform my life, I’m almost always wrong. Almost always disappointed. (They say comparison is the thief of joy, I say the thieves are Unrealistic Expectations.) Going to college was certainly one of those times for me, as it seems like it’s been for you. It’s desperate. I left high school feeling secure in maybe four female friendships but adrift everywhere else. I was ready to put an end to all the high school mishegas and find my people. My lifelong people, as you say. I was ready for HAPPINESS and MEANING and SAFETY and EASE and motherfucking CONFIDENCE! I spent hours in the University Michigan Facebook group (gd I’m aging myself aren’t I) searching for the face of my future bestie, the person who would make life a little more bearable, who would walk beside me every step of the way. 

College is marketed to us as THE ANSWER for everything, and in turn, we ask it to do far too much: we hope it will help us get us a job, teach us something about people who are different, meet our soulmate, find our squad, develop autonomy, grow into a respectable adult who knows how to control their drinking. Because we’re creatures who want an immediate return on our investments, we want those ANSWERS to find us fast. In reading your letter, one thing I hear is that because it hasn’t happened fast for you — “it” being finding the relationships you crave — you’re ready to give the whole thing up.  

I want you to know that just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it never will. None of the lifelong friends I made in college earned that status while we were there. Those VIP cards developed over time.

On resetting your expectations

A new thing I do when my reality isn’t turning out the way I thought it would, or when I realize that I may have set an Unrealistic Expectation for myself, is to entertain a new plausible one. Just ENTERTAIN it…I don’t need to back it up with tons of facts or die on the sword for it or anything like it. It’s just a fun little game. Here’s a real example I’m struggling w/ right now: I want to sell a book this year. I DESPERATELY want to sell a book, maybe two books, and become known for my work and have notoriety and fame and yada yada yada. I know this is driven by ego and insecurity but nevertheless I WANT IT. So, to entertain a new reality, I say something like this: Hm. What would it look like if I don’t sell a book this year? Or if I don’t become an overnight sensation? Hm. Interesting. Can I stomach that? 

Then I sit with it until I can stomach it. I do this every day if I have to. In this new entertained reality I can see that I will still write and work hard and connect with others until I achieve the things I want…but it might be in a few years. Who knows. Maybe it’s woo-woo. But it does help me feel better when things aren’t moving at the pace that I want them too. 

So just for the sake of this exercise, can you entertain the idea that college might not be peak friendship time for you? It wasn’t for me, nor was it for most of the people in my life. Say it aloud: The relationships I crave are out there, they exist, it’s okay if I don’t have them yet. I can be patient. They won’t run away, there is no timeline, I have all the time in the world. 

What does that feel like? If I were you, I’d sit with those words until I can stomach them. I’m doing it with you, for my own shit. Can you feel me doing it with you?

On a new framework for friendship

You say that the people you’ve met “don’t seem enthusiastic about forming the deep, committed friendships” that you crave, and I’m curious about this. Is it possible that you’re looking for one person to fulfill all your friendship needs? 

I have this theory called the “six besties framework” which is basically a set of six friendship profiles that I need personally to have a meaningful life. (Watch the TikTok for all the deets.) 

There’s dead body bestie (the person who helps you clean up your mess, no questions asked), good time bestie (the friend you call for a good time), work bestie (similarly self-explanatory), similar ambition bestie (someone who has similar goals and dreams for the future), OG bestie (someone who knows everything about your past…you may drift apart over time but when you speak, it’s like no time has passed), and North Star bestie (the person who makes you feel more like yourself after a five minute conversation).  

I developed this framework after years of feeling disappointed by friendships and not understanding why. And then it hit me: I was putting too much pressure on one person to do everything! Once I realized that I can have different friends — different BEST FRIENDS — for different purposes, I was free. I stopped feeling bad that my good time bestie wasn’t also my North Star bestie. Are they sometimes the same person? Yes. But it’s totally okay if they’re not. 

What I’m trying to tell you is: I don’t think all of your new friendships need to be that deep. Of course, if you only have surface-level friendships, that might leave you feeling lonely. But if you have a few surface-level friends, and then there’s one person you admire in your small lecture and you see if they want to get coffee one day after class, and you go and you have a conversation that burns the fog out of your line of vision. I think it will make you feel better. Do they need to be someone you go out with and text all the time? They don’t. Deep friendship starts small. Getting random coffees could be the beginning of something long lasting. But you’ll never know if you don’t take off some of this pressure to find your people right away. 

On “working hard” to make friends

I want to talk about something else you wrote. You said, “I’ve been working very hard to make these existing relationships stronger and meet new people, with limited success.” 

Listen, my love, I don’t know you, but I can feel that what you want is to feel safe and loved and accepted for who you are. I don’t know the details of what “working very hard” looks like in your case, but I hope that what you’re doing isn’t causing you strain. I’m not talking about your social anxiety: I understand that for you, the act of reaching out and being in social situations may exert quite a bit of energy. What I’m saying is: Making friends takes courage, but it shouldn’t take your dignity. 

I think this is a mistake I made in college, and I wonder if you’re doing it too: I saw someone that looked like a good match to be my BFF, and I would try to morph myself into something that could fit their criteria, because all I wanted was to be someone’s person. This is Hayes, she’s my best friend. I was less concerned about how that friendship made me feel. 

On making a decision

Now for your actual decision: I don’t think transferring — or considering a transfer — is childish. I should say: It’s not necessarily childish. A smaller school could be a better fit for your type of human bean. I have friends who transferred for similar reasons and say it was the best decision they made in young adulthood. But what I think would be a mistake — albeit not a childish one because many adults, myself included, do this on a regular business — is if you change your situation but not your mindset. A change in scenery is not always a cure. If you don’t shift your expectations, I suspect you’ll find yourself in a similar situation: feeling pressure to find your people fast, disappointment if it doesn’t happen right away, followed by a storm. 

Don’t transfer because of what you hope the school can provide you, transfer for what you know it can. You know it will provide you with an excellent education through those programs you mentioned. You know it will provide you with the satisfaction and experience of moving away from your family and friends — it’s a special club, the one where you leave home. No one can take that badge away from you, which is pretty cool. You know that you will have smaller classes, which you suspect you will enjoy more, but you can’t be sure. Go for those reasons. 

I can’t make the decision for you, about whether you should transfer or not. I don’t think there’s a perfect answer. I believe that whatever you decide will be the right decision — and in both scenarios, you will be successful and fulfilled and find joy and connection. I know you will. Your people are out there, I promise. They might even be in front of you right now, hoping you’ll ask them for coffee, that you’ll stick around long enough to share some adventures. How do I know? Because you are someone that people will want to be friends with. 

Yours,

Hayes