D asks: I am an 18-year-old student who attends a state university. I discovered your book while browsing through videos online and it has made me feel seen and understood. I was hoping you could help me know more about how to progress through life after college socially. I have been losing some friendships due to breakups between friends or drifting apart due to no longer sharing a common interest. I have become concerned about what steps I should take to regain control of my social life before it becomes harder to make friends after graduation.
I hesitate to begin where I want to because I fear I’ll sound like every other adult in the world giving you advice. Yet what I want to say is also true: you have so much more time for this than you think you do.
Your life is far more expansive than it feels right now, and your fear of not having enough friends before you graduate is likely to only close you off to the potential for friendship all around you. While you look to gain security, you’ll forget to play, laugh, explore, and trust that you will develop the community you crave.
College is a wonderful place to make friends, but friends can arrive from anywhere and everywhere: a concert you didn’t plan to attend, a coffee shop you frequent, a pick-up basketball game, cooking classes you made yourself take, at home when a new roommate moves into the house you’re renting, through friends of friends and friends of people you’re dating, or at one of the many jobs you’ll have. A lot of friends are certainly made in college, but that can just be the beginning.
We are so wired from a young age to see life as this kind of linear staircase where if certain things aren’t done by certain times, that’s it. But it doesn’t work like that. Especially not with friendships and community. In fact, I really do hope that you are just beginning to find your people because, the truth is, you are really just beginning to even know yourself.
The upcoming years—and for a long time—should be all about discovering who you are, what you like, and what kind of life you want to live. It should be about taking risks to try things you want to try but feel afraid of, or to travel to places you are curious about. You can meet people in everything you do, and the common denominator in all of them will be you. In friendship, you are the medium, so your own desires and interests will really lead the way to new people. If you let them.
Indeed, all of your unique interests and aspects can help you, like magnets, to find other people in the world with whom you will happily connect.
Most of your life so far has been lived in childhood. Childhood may be a time of deeply rooted friendships, some of which can last a lifetime. But when we make friends in childhood, it’s largely based on fate and circumstances: where we were raised, what schools we went to, or who our families spent time with. College is similar: we become friends with people who might be in our dorms, classes, or teams. All of this is wonderful—hopefully. Sometimes it’s not. But it’s all kind of accidental. What comes next can be more intentional and, as a result, potentially more fulfilling.
If friendships feel hard or hard to find, be humble and open to learning about why and consider it a skill to genuinely learn. Don’t feel bad or hide away. Be open and curious about intimacy and how to find it. This is something our culture is so very bad at teaching us, and it’s such a very wonderful place to spend time exploring.
Don’t be shy about engaging in psychodynamic therapy, which can help so much in learning about how to feel feelings, grieve loss, share your inner life, and understand human connection; everything that happens in relational therapy will serve you outside of therapy with other humans.
There’s also tremendous value in exploring books about communication and connection, podcasts that speak to questions of intimacy and friendship, and being open to talking with others about how to be more fully yourself, more clear in your communication, and better with boundaries. These are skills we all have to hone.
But don’t worry about time.
You will keep growing and your life will keep delivering you to new places, and I hope you’ll find that your most fulfilling communities are still ahead of you. Even if there’s some loneliness and fear now, those coming friendships can be treasures to look forward to. A lot of joy awaits you. Meanwhile, in the time alone, invest in truly building a relationship with yourself. You are the common denominator in all current and future relationships. Nurture self-love, self-respect, as well as a genuine curiosity in others when you’re in their company, and then the world is limitless.
xo, Satya
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