High school friends attending different colleges is already sad enough, but in this day and age, social media is here to make you feel even worse about it. Sure, you didn’t think you were going to miss them for a good month or two into school, but seeing them with new friends and new jokes within their first week on campus—it stings. FOMO is a rampant and saddening feeling that is demanding to be felt all across the country right about now, especially for many current or soon-to-be college freshmen. Whether you’ve already experienced it, are experiencing it, or have yet to experience it, FOMO spares no soul. The “Fear of Missing Out” becomes too much for one to handle and you are suddenly left feeling small, unimportant, and seemingly forgotten.
Take me, for example. Although I am over-the-moon about starting out my freshman year at Marquette, I have numerous friends attending college elsewhere, and the thought of that still bums me out, to be perfectly honest. With four of my friends at the same school in a different state, and another one 2,200 miles away, I feel as though their social media posts are making me homesick in a way—despite home being just 20 minutes away from me. You see, FOMO doesn’t care who you are, where you are, or what you are doing. FOMO can strike at any moment, even if it’s in regards to posts from people you never thought you would miss in a million years. Posts from that guy that used to make fun of you in grade school, that girl in the grade below you that you sat next to in Spanish III, that teacher you finally friended once you graduated; no matter who it is, where they’re from, or how they’re connected to you, it can happen.
Okay, so it’s not like I wasn’t expecting people to not document their lives on social media, but I didn’t think they would feel the need to document every drink, every party, every new friend. Yet, here I am, in my dorm room, writing this very article as I am receiving an ungodly number of snapchats from multiple friends attending the same party at their respective college.
I know what you’re thinking, “this is only temporary, you’ll feel better once you’re fully adjusted at school.” Alright, so although this may be true, it’s still going to be hard seeing your best friends make new best friends, especially when that process is being very openly documented. Don’t get me wrong, though, I don’t want to relive high school, but that doesn’t mean I want to completely leave everyone behind, either—at least, not right out of the gate.
I think the reason that we experience FOMO is to remind us that we care. Having FOMO due to someone’s Snapchat story, new Facebook profile picture, or tweet, featuring a new inside joke of theirs, probably means that you care about them—which is a good thing! Too often, we are quick to consider experiencing FOMO as a negative thing, something petty, something that exploits one’s jealousy or selfishness. However, in reality, it is a form of flattery, of caring, of love, in a twisted and diluted way.
Even though FOMO isn’t as big and bad as one may think, it’s not exactly a feeling you want to be feeling all the time. Nevertheless, there’s a simple way to rid yourself of your FOMO—at least for a little while, anyway. The realization that you and your high school friends are now living separate lives can be a hard one to fully comprehend. However, once you start embracing your own collegiate lifestyle, full of classes, friends, food, parties, sporting events, etc., it will become a lot easier to denounce your FOMO whenever it gets you down. So don’t get hung up in your dorm room, moping around because your best friend is at a party 300 miles away without you—put on your favorite outfit, grab some of your floormates, and explore the nightlife on your campus. Who knows, maybe your snaps from that night will give someone else their own bittersweet taste of FOMO.
