Why Making Friends in College is Hard

When I first came to Lewis & Clark, I had a tough time finding my footing. I was having a problem that I've never had before in my life: I wasn't making any close friends. (Which is the reason for the following ugly-cry selfie.)

Freshman year was rough okay?

As we launch into the final category of class, I find myself applying these relationship theories to people I have met on campus.

These relationship theories include:

• Social Penetration Theory (SPT): the development of a relationship over time. In order to get to the deep and personal stuff, a relationship needs to work its way through the outer, more surface-level layers

• Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT): applies to relationships in which the desire to know another person/their intentions drives communication

• Dialectic Theory: all about the forming of relationships due to opposing tensions

Social Penetration Theory applies to the relationships I am most familiar with: friends from home. It was easy to make friends back home, which is why I wasn't initially worried about making friends in college. Perhaps it's because in my hometown, I'd been slowly scraping away layers of my peers since kindergarten. It's easy to get to know someone who you've been around your entire life.

So, what happens when you suddenly become surrounded with people you haven't been around your whole life? Besides the major culture shock, there is an overwhelming sense of uncertainty. While I was making an effort to engage in conversations with my peers, tag along for lunches or head off campus, I wasn't feeling secure in the relationships I was trying so hard to maintain. I think I get it now. Everyone is uncertain. There is so much social pressure on new students to make new friends, find their friend group, and have them as their social safety net. Because of this, in my experience, people weren't being their true, genuine selves right off the bat. They were either trying to impress one another or trying to be likable. In this case of Uncertainty Reduction Theory, I created relationships in an attempt to get to know other students and learn about others. However, the more the relationships progressed, the more uncertain the relationships became. After a while, the uncertainty and risks began to out-weigh the goal I had of finding a close friend.

I know everyone's college experiences are different. Likewise, every relationship is different and can't be defined or categorized perfectly by a theory. To end this post on a lighter note, here's a pic to show that I actually did make friends. It just took a really long time (to find them and to also peel away all those layers).