College comes with so many lessons, the biggest one being who each of us really is as a person. While balancing new friends in a new city, a different workload compared to high school and learning to live on your own for the first time, it’s easy to become someone who spends more time alone (and prefers it).
College Isolation
As responsibilities start to pile up we are forced to figure out a heavier schedule, with schoolwork, extracurriculars, errands and hobbies changing shape from what they were a couple years ago. Running from class to the post office to the grocery store to your job is mostly done alone whether you like it or not.
Physically moving away from your hometown that holds hundreds of important memories and sentiments is an emotional event, too. It’s all you know and now you have to create a life from scratch in a whole new place. Evidently, you see your hometown friends less now, since you live hundreds of miles away from them during most of the year and it’s likely that their universities’ schedules don’t match up perfectly to yours.
Post-dorm years also provide an experience less talked about: the awkward distance you now live from people who once were your next-door neighbors. Even though so many people still live within a 10-minute walking radius, finding time to hang out with everyone is just a little more difficult, which makes it evermore infrequent.
You Learn the Most About Yourself When You’re Alone
Although the progression of your social life seems bleak, your attitude on how you handle the transition determines your success. Being open and excited to change is important for healthy growth in early adulthood.
If you think about how often you’re alone with your thoughts — walking to class, doing homework, washing the dishes — you probably realize that you spend more time alone than you think. Spending this time thinking about recent events, how you feel about things that have happened recently, or what you want for your future, can help you learn a lot about your personal values and what you like or dislike. If you journal, that’s even better.
Solitude also allows you to figure out your favorite routines and time management. You can figure out your perfect morning and night routine, when the best time is for getting homework done and when you prefer to eat. Being alone for all of this lets you figure out what you like best independently of anyone who might prefer to eat earlier, have a shorter nighttime routine, or would rather do their work at night instead of in the morning.
Anxiety in Public
The idea of doing activities alone is possibly nerve-wracking, but the best perks of going out alone make it worth it. A common obstacle to going out alone is fear of being judged, but once you become accustomed to being alone in public more, this social anxiety subsides. After all, when you see someone alone in public, you don’t give it a second thought, do you?
Activities alone allow you to define the parameters of your experience. You decide what parts you want to interact with and how long (or not long) you want to stay there. Not having to wait for others to be free means you can go whenever you want — you can try a new coffee shop or museum today instead of waiting until the weekend! Most importantly, you create an unbiased opinion of your experience. If you hate the ambiance of the restaurant you just tried, there’s no one in your ear trying to convince you otherwise (and vice versa.)
Finding the Perfect Balance
While you might resonate with everything so far, you still have friends that you want to see and who want to hang out with you. You can enjoy alone time, but you can’t forget to invest in your relationships. When no one is able to hang out, invest that time in yourself so that you’re free later when everyone else is.
Being a college student, it’s easy to go online and get the idea that everyone is always doing something exciting with friends, which can make you unreasonably stressed that you’re falling behind in that department. Because we’re told that these are the years that we’re going to have the most friends, we think we need to be with them all the time. It’s important to remember that social media is just a highlight reel and spending time with yourself can be just as valuable as time with others.
Some will realize that you prefer to be alone more than with others as you get older, contrary to your experience growing up. Although personality changes like that are scary, it’s important to accept them and nourish them. Preference for being surrounded by others isn’t more valuable than the opposite (despite popular belief), but you can’t fight for the former if that isn’t truly you.
Do you prefer spending time with just yourself, or with others? Let VALLEY know on Instagram @VALLEYmag!
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