Post-Graduation Loneliness

Upon graduation day you're expected to have your plans, your new job lined up, your new place of residence, and nice hair under a really stupid looking cap. Maybe you do have a job, a new beautiful home, and a trusty car to take you across the country. If you had nice hair the whole day I'm sorry but I just don't trust you as a person. It's a week or a few months later and you're settling in and all seems well. Except one day you stop and take a moment to assess your life and you realize something...you're lonely. Like really lonely. I call it post-graduation loneliness.

No one wants to admit they're lonely. No one wants to say I don't fit in. No one wants to say I'm having a hard time making friends I genuinely connect with. Well, I'll happily be the first to raise my hand and say I struggle with all of those things. The thing is, I know I'm not alone. It affects everyone. It's not a symptom of simply moving abroad. It's not a symptom of staying home. It's a symptom of leaving college and starting an independent life. I felt like college prepared me for a select few things in real life but it did not prepare me for the feeling that I can't find anyone who just gets me. In fact, it made that feeling show up in the first place. So college, I blame you.

College is a time of many things but for me it was a time of growth and friendship. It showed me the kind of friends I wanted to have, who I wanted to hang out with, how I liked to interact with my friends, and who was worth investing in (because let's be real, friendships take work). I started out freshman year with as many friends as possible but I came to realize I was exhausted. I now value quality over quantity and my number of friends dwindled but those true friendships became extremely strong and gave me so much joy in life like they still do. I found people who got me. People I didn't have to explain myself to. People I wasn't worried about what I said around. People who would talk to me whether I was in America, Rome, or the Dominican Republic. People who deeply and truly loved me. People who were mine. I was constantly surrounded by them and could be filled up with their love at any time with a simple text or phone call. And then on May 6, 2017 it all changed.

They didn't warn you. They didn't have a flashing sign. They just gave you your diploma (correction: in the mail 4 months later) only to walk out of a multi thousand person building to have your life changed forever. There was no class or homework assignment on how to handle being lonely. I wish there had been. No one discussed it beforehand because we either didn't know or it was too painful to talk about. Yet here I am, 5 months after graduation surrounded by people but having no one to truly call a friend.

I met up with my closest friend from Rome a few weeks ago and he expressed the same sentiment even after graduating in 2016. He said he had different friends but none he was really connected to. He said he didn't know how to make friends again while schedules were different, people were in different stages in life, and when you just can't seem to connect with anyone. We talked about how much time you spend with your friends back home or from college and the foundation you have with them you just don't have with anyone else anymore. To build that foundation takes a good amount of time and realistically spending that much time with people now seems impossible (hello 9-5). I was relieved to know I wasn't alone. I discovered though that my friends have been feeling this way all over the world. As one friend said, "It's so much harder than I thought it was going to be." I completely agree.

You grow up making friends and usually people stay in 1 or 2 places their whole childhood so you have incredible friendships with people who you love to be around and could call to play, hangout, or cry on the phone with. You carry some of those friendships throughout college and there you make even more friends who you easily relate to and would do anything for. It's easy because you're in the same space doing pretty similar things. You go through some of the hardest times of your life together. You go through times no one else can understand. I remember the morning I learned my grandfather had passed away. I was surrounded by four incredible men who, though not amazing at comforting, loved me and spent time with me anyway. No one else gets that experience and because of it I value them even more than before. You don't just create those moments or that bond. While many of my friends in college were my brothers, they truly felt like family. Those friends were there at the parties with you, were there at breakups, were there for many a late night snacks, were there through study abroad, were there for rejections, were there for acceptances, and were there when you were planning your life after college. But while they're still here in spirit and in technology, it's not the same. You can't see them whenever you want. You can't pop up at their house at any time of day. You can't decide to dye your hair blue at 11 pm one night (thank you JC for that brilliant idea). They are no longer there. While you want them to be where you are, you also want to have new friends who you feel the same way about.

Which means you have to make new friends. But how? There are people with kids, people who are engaged, people who are single, people who only want to party, people who are leaving in a few months, people who only care about their job, people who are married, and people who you can't communicate with because sadly you don't speak a shared language. I've found myself having surface level friends but no one who truly gets me. I just want someone I don't have to explain my whole life to again.  I want someone in a similar stage of life as me. I want someone who likes what I like. I want someone who I feel comfortable around. I want someone who won't leave me.

Quite frankly it's exhausting casting your net so wide in hopes of finding one or two other people who get you and you get them. It's not easy to find someone you want to spend a lot of time with, especially when time has become so precious because you now do something called work. Sometimes I feel like I'm dating people and I'm playing games like "Is it weird if I text them? Have I invited them out too much? Do they even like me?" I don't want to feel that way.

Truthfully, I've always been insecure about friends even since elementary school. I never felt popular or like many people liked me. It was difficult for me to find genuine friends for a while. Even in studying abroad, I never felt like I fit in or like I was really liked by others. I think a part of that is my loud and opinionated personality combined with my beliefs on top of the fact that finding someone who matches up with you is just really difficult. So moving abroad after graduation has clearly not decreased my level of insecurity regarding making friends.

I have no solution to the post-graduation loneliness syndrome. But I know it's real. I know it's not only me and not only people in foreign countries. It's hard to make new friends, anywhere. And sometimes you don't want to make any new ones; you just want the ones you love to be there with you wherever you are. But it's never the same after graduation day. Everyone will never be in the same place again and that reality is like a smack in the face. Maybe that's why people say college is the best 4 years of your life. While I disagree and think it's sad if that was your peak, I definitely can see it being the best 4 years of friendship of your life. Making friends (you like) in the real world as an adult with a job, bills, and responsibilities is not easy. Your new life is amazing except where are all the new people to share it with? Honestly, it gets lonely. It gets sad. It gets hard. But just know, even if you are lonely, you are not alone. I feel it too.