How are your friendship dynamics within lab?
I am final year PhD student in a lab which I used to think was very social and welcoming lab till recently.
The lab is decent size (10-15 people) with all international students and researchers. We used to do after work drinks, birthday parties and so on. So basically my impression was we were close friends, till recently. I used to reach out when someone was not doing well mentally.
Last few months was really hard on me as I was navigating through the whats coming after PhD and was burned out. I was quiet and didn’t interacted much with people in the lab even when we were hanging out and started mostly working from home. What surprised me was no one ever checked on me. “Hey you seem down, everything okay?” or “How are you doing?”
Fast forward now, I am doing better with the support from my partner, I do workout and do mindful activities.
I started to hangout more with labmates and I started to realize, I do not have the “friendship vibe“ with them now.
I started to see that the labmates were more of colleagues than friends.
Has anyone felt similar feelings?