<p>Hey, I’m a college sophomore and I forgot to go to the housing lottery last year (yeah I know, that was stupid, but I was in the library writing a paper so there was no one to let me know about it or anything). Well I ended up getting put into a building with mostly upperclassmen in it and I basically don’t know anyone here. The setup in the building really restricts interaction so I really don’t see myself making friends with the people in here, plus they are mostly upper classmen and already have their own friends. The way it’s set up is there are 12 “pods” with 6 or 8 single and double rooms in each, but in order to get into each pod you need to know the key code. So basically you can only see the people in your pod, and i rarely even see them. I am in a double but my roomate never showed up so I’m the only one in it. I like being alone at times, and I love having the privacy of my own room… I can watch whatever I want on tv, shut the lights off when i want etc. Also, it seems as though my study habits have improved due to the privacy and the fact that I don’t have to go to the library to be in a quiet enviornment. This is good because my grades weren’t too great last year and I have to bring them up. </p>
<p>The problem is that my friends from last year all live in another building, and I’ve been here 2 weeks now and haven’t really seen much of them other than walking around campus. The worst part is that I’m pretty shy and last year I was lucky enough to have a more outgoing roomate who has a lot of friends, and I basically stuck with him for the most part. My problem is that now that I don’t live near them I don’t really have anyone to hang out with. It seems as though people mostly hang out with the people in their building… especially when almost all of their friends from freshman year are living in their building. Plus, I never got really close to any of them and I pretty much just tagged along with my roomate (who I guess i was pretty close with but not as close as the other guys, they hung out during the summer because they live close to each other, and I don’t). I mean it wasn’t like they didn’t want me there last year or I didn’t fit in or anything, but I just didn’t have the same bond with some of them as they did with each other. Plus my roomate usually made the plans and would let me know what was going on and call me to do things. Well now no one calls me to go eat or hang out or anything. I understand this and I would probably do the same if I were them, and not bother calling someone who lives far away and just hang out with the people in my dorm. The problem is that I don’t feel in any way connected with them anymore, and I’m not sure what to do. I think I would feel uncomfortable going and sitting down with them now if I were to see them in the cafeteria eating or something, like I might not fit in now or something, and I never was the type of person to call people or make plans (I have friends from high school that I hang out with in the summer but they do all the planning). What do you think I should do? I could try to move out of here, and I guess it would be easy because it’s a nice place and it will be an open double with me gone. But the problem is I like the fact that I can study in my room and I think it would help my grades to stay. </p>
<p>Thanks</p>