I’ve been in college for about a week, so maybe this is an overreaction to my hometown friends and people around me, but I can’t seem to get past this mental block preventing me from talking to new people. My hometown friends and people around me in college are going to tailgates with people they met, partying with people they meet in lectures, and meeting whole new friend groups while I can’t even strike up a conversation in my lectures. They make it sound so simple, “just find people in lectures or the dining hall and get their socials and start talking to them.” I can’t. I don’t know how. I want to more than anything, but something is preventing me from doing so. I’m starting to realize that the only reason I made all my hometown friends in the first place is because I either had a socially adept friend facilitate us meeting in some way or I was assigned to sit next to them and made to work with them, both of which led to me having a good amount of friends in high school. Now though, when it’s on me to meet new people, I can’t keep conversations going, and I can barely get them started as it is. I don’t feel cut out to socialize with new people, especially now when it feels like people have started finding their “crowds” and sticking with them. I’ve gone to some events around campus, but it just feels like everyone’s found their people. Everyone said college was gonna be the best four years of your life where you meet people you’ll be friends with for the rest of your life, but to be honest I just can’t keep up socially.