Living as an Intrevort

         

Week One Day One

How should I explain it? The transition from high school to college is…well, not all it is hyped up to be. There’s no hazing from any clubs-so far-no one is really ready to open up to anyone expect their classmates and roommates. No help moving into the dorm and no helping the ever developing sense of isolation when the parents say bye.

Everything would work better if there was someone you knew, someone to help you along the way, someone to be the best friend you need in college. Usually they come in the form of your classmates, roommate(s), and people who have come to the same college as you.

Sadly, I have no classmates in any of my classes thus far, my roommate has already made fast friends with our neighbors-who, BTW, have the same major and share the same teachers-so she doesn’t spend much time with me, and I have only opposite-gender HS mates who are in completely different majors! So there is no help anywhere.

I moved in last Thursday/Friday and have already scouted out the fastest way to get to my classes and found the quietest spots to study in the library. But I was alone in doing so, people already formed their little clicks, people didn’t try to include me in their conversations-to be fair I did talk to some upper classmen-, and I feel so alone.

I’m strong, I know I’ll like my classes, and I know that I have at least three months to get to know my dorm mates more, but I feel so inadequate. A majority of them are thin, fit, and care about their appearance. While, a minority of them can be considered extremely, extremely, obese-or just have huge bones. I’m none of them, I can’t click with them, and so I feel that the safest place for me is inside my room until I find people who love the same things I do. But, I just don’t feel like I fit in!

This sense of loss, this feeling of overbearing isolation, cuts me, stuns me, bruises my heart, and pricks my eyes with tears! So far, nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed from high school. Nothing, except that my friends are farther away, my parents aren’t here to give me the support and attention an only-child receives, and I feel so empty.

That sense of loss only increases as I hear the guys outside the dorm whooping and hollering as they play volleyball. This sense of isolation suffocates me as I walk behind my roommate and one of our neighbors as they complain about the biology book. This sense of desperation, of a need to be recognized, grows and grows.

This is the first day, of the first week, of an introvert.