Second-year student and still haven’t made real friends - is this normal?
I’m a second-year international student at UChicago, and I’m honestly feeling really disappointed and frustrated because after almost two years here, I still haven’t made any genuine friends.
I talk to people in class, and the conversations are usually nice, but they rarely go beyond small talk. I’ve tried asking people to study together or hang out, but somehow it never actually happens. There was one girl I tried to become friends with, but I realized I was always the only one suggesting we meet or do something, so it started to feel one-sided.
At this point, I’m worried that everyone has already found their friend groups and isn’t really looking for new people anymore. I usually don’t have a problem starting conversations, but here they just seem to start and end in class. Strangely, I’ve had better luck meeting people outside of UChicago, just in Chicago generally, than on campus.
I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong, if this is common here, or if I just haven’t found the right people yet. It’s been frustrating enough that I’ve ended up focusing a lot more on my own start-up and another job, but I still really want to have a social life and feel connected to people at school.
Has anyone else experienced this? How did you actually make real friends here after your second year?