When you’re in a room full of strangers, making friends, you subconsciously gravitate towards people that seem somehow familiar, whether that be from their accent, their appearance, or because they’re wearing a t-shirt of your favourite band. But what happens when there’s no one that feels like a likely partnership?

I’ve gone my whole life with a feeling of alienation, and a complicated relationship with the people and places that shaped me into the person—or tessellated pieces of a person—that I am today. I’ve always been incredibly sensitive and pensive, yet I’ve tried hard to become more extraverted. It wasn’t until the Opportunity Oxford residential in September that I’ve ever been described as “bubbly”. I had to learn how to become social, and it often felt like a performance.

I came to Oxford thinking that I’d meet lots of people who were “like me”: socially awkward and more comfortable with their head buried in a book than engaged in conversation. This expectation was shattered when I began to understand the social climate of my college, a place where an extroverted nature was the expectation, and big personalities dominated the space. My earlier efforts at becoming a social butterfly paled in comparison. I realised that this skill that I’d fought for was something that all of these people were born with. And everyone can sniff out a counterfeit.

Yet amongst all of this, my greatest ally, my kindred spirit, was a wonderful girl that I had met during the residential. There was an awkwardness initially, with both of us dipping our toes into the waters of potential friendship, but in the tightly packed mixing bowl of a small group of young adults thrown together for two weeks, the ice quickly melted. I think the key to our friendship was vulnerability. I’d decided to drop the façade that I’d tried meticulously to create. When I’d grown exhausted from the constant pretending within college, I knew that she was only minutes away, and by going to see her I could rip off the mask.

Despite this beautiful flourishing friendship, I felt like there was something missing in my social life at Oxford. I often feel like the collegiate system puts an emphasis on friendships being concentrated within the college environment, as opposed to spread out across the university. I felt my closest friendship didn’t count, somehow, and the fact of my loneliness in college was staring me in the face. It seemed like everyone else had formed solid friendships by the end of second week, and here I was hurtling towards the end of Hilary as a reclusive mess in desperate need of human connection. There was nothing new about this feeling, but I was embarrassed about the fact that it had continued to chase me into adulthood and into the university in which everyone told me I was going to find “My People”.

It wasn’t until the Easter vacation that sparks of hope began to appear. Someone from my classes had begun to message me, not out of courtesy but out of genuine interest. I remembered how I’d developed that friendship back in September: vulnerability. Opening up to this individual catalysed our bond, taking us from classmates who occasionally talked outside of tutorials, to something closer to a meaningful relationship. I realised that I didn’t have to perform for him, that he didn’t expect me to be loud or self-assured, and that I could be as open as I wanted without him finding me too weird to talk to. I wouldn’t say that the floodgates of friendship burst entirely open, but there was a foot in the door, as conversation began to flow between myself and a lovely PPE-ist at my college. Things were looking up.

Now for some solid advice. Making friends is easier when you’re not worrying about impressing them, so reassure yourself with the knowledge that they already like you. Don’t try to squeeze into a narrow expectation of what you “should” be like or stretch yourself so thinly that you end up exhausted. Find your happy medium: prioritise your happiness over the prospect of approval. 

Ask someone new to go for coffee. Go to hall as often as possible. Be present at college events. Join a society: there will be lots of recognisable faces around the city, so that when you go for a walk, you’ll bump into someone you know and the brief conversation or fleeting smile will remind you that there are people in Oxford who value you. Finally, remember this all takes time: the day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.