It’s been almost two decades since I first went to college, and obviously things are different now (especially after 2020).

I was an introvert and loner through high school, so I thought college would be the same. Fortunately, it wasn’t and I managed to find friends throughout the years of my stay there.

Perhaps one of the major factors is that we all started as a batch. Freshmen in college studying the same major tend to go to the same classes right? So all these young teens meeting each other every single class every single day helped in keeping us in constant proximity.

Being with the same people at the same time at the same place every day naturally gave me the chance to reinvent myself and a chance for me to “take the initiative” to be social.

Again, I’m not an extrovert and I’m not social. But I’m not anti-social either. A few eye contacts, actively listening and reacting to the conversation happening beside me, actively being approachable helped a lot. It’s hard to describe, but as long as I didn’t make a conscious effort to be a loner, it was possible to make friends in my case.