I rarely feel alone in life, I've always either had great friends or my huge family to make me feel safe, secure, and confident. But when I moved away to college all of that changed. I thought it would be fun and cool, and that I'd make friends instantly but I forgot that without someone by my side I can barely speak. I am so used to being the loud, outgoing, and funny person people told me I was in High School. I can't talk to people now, when I do I feel so self conscious and not physically, although being the fat girl has it's own struggles, they don't have to do with the way I feel because I've seen plenty of larger ladies and gentlemen on campus. I just feel so shy, like everything I say is wrong or weird. My roommates probably think I'm some loner freak but that's not who I usually am. I guess I've used my friends as a bit of a security blanket the last few years, I really didn't do much without them. I want to give the people I'm around the oppurtunity to get to know the real me, but I'm so worried it'll come off wrong or I'll rub someone the wrong way. It's been 2 weeks since I've moved in and I can honestly say I've made no friends and probably talked to a handful of people. And everyone is really nice in college, but for some reason I reject myself before others can do it, I'm not sure why. And I do enjoy being alone, that's why I have my own bedroom, but sometimes I do get really sad because of it. Of course the only person at this school who knows who I really am is my older cousin, but I try not to cling to her because I don't want to depend on family like I have for years. I know that I need to just be me, but it's so hard with all these outgoing people around me. What's really sad is recently I realized that in my lifetime I've made very few friends on my own, I can only think of one off of the top of my head, and that was 2nd grade. Don't get me wrong, I do have many friends and I love them all so much, but I didn't meet them on my own, either they approached me (with no reccolection of the event) or I meet them through someone else, I wish I could do it on my own. I have not only had a hard time making friends, but getting stuff done is hard too, it's not the difficulty of the tasks either, my brain keeps reminding me that I'm alone, and that I have no friends. When I see groups of people or even just outgoing people going around making friends I feel so envious because all I want is to be able to do that. I am even considering joining stage crew for my school's theatre simply because I love the theatre and I always like the types of people involved in it, I'm just worried they won't like me back. This doesn't seem like an article I know, it's more blog/journal like, but I do enjoy a good rant and I hope I'm not the only person who has been through this, I'm sure I'm not but it feels that way sometimes. I guess I'm socially awkward or inept? But I have to remind myself that I can make friends if I try, no one has to feel alone.