To make the transition to a new life in a new city a bit smoother, UKrant's student editors give their top tips over the next three weeks. Today: don't worry about making friends right away.
When I first moved here, like many, I did not have a lot of friends. At first, of course, I went to every party, every event, every get-together I could get myself invited into. However, while I had many friendly conversations with people, I still felt hesitant to call them friends.
Even of those relationships that seemed well on the way to blossom into friendships, most wilted. These kinds of fizzled-out relationships are easy to focus on and see as failures.
I wish I had realised earlier that it's alright to not have many friends immediately. Everything in those first months was in flux, and that was okay. I was in a new environment, figuring out who I was. With that insight, I started to see a conversation with a stranger not as a game to be won by securing a friend, but as a mutual exploration to find out what we are looking for in a friendship.
These people I talked to and who didn't become close friends were not failed interactions, but little successes in finding out who I was. And it was only when I learned to understand myself better that I found the people that I needed. I realised that when it comes to friendships, it's the quality that counts, not the quantity.
Sometimes things take time, and that's perfectly alright.
No comments:
Post a Comment