Never felt like this before...

Well, I've been in a rut since January...I have a sucession of really good days where I feel fine and happy and everything is going well. Those days I don't worry about anything and feel relieved that I might finally be making a change. Yet, I get weeks where most of the time it feels as though I'm alone here at college....I have a boyfriend but I barely see him at all and I feel more like I'm friends with him now. My roommates constantly leave me out and do things together and I just can't seem to make any close, meaningful friendships. My parents always call and say they'll come visit but cancel at the last minute. I'm tired of being so alone...I really feel like I have nobody anymore. Everything is pulling away from me and no matter how hard I try to catch up to regain my old life it speeds away faster and faster. I'm pretty sure it isn't depression because my family doesn't have a history and I've never felt like this before, but I'm so confused as to why this didn't hit me last year during freshman year. I really don't like this isolation cell I've put myself in.

College is such a unique and crazy time of life. I had a girlfriend at the time, literally one of the best most decent, prettiest, most polite, warmest people Ive ever met in my life who had a group of girls on her floor who were just a terrible fit. They used to do those things to her. Leave her out and try to make her feel isolated. This upset her very much. I was that boyfriend who was far away. She ended up transferring and found happiness then. Quitting something makes us feel like we failed but I think it's important that you're in tune with the way you feel and perhaps a change would benefit you. I'm not telling you to drop out of school, but give yourself a time frame. Say, a year or at least another semester. Promise yourself that you will wake up each day and try your best no matter what to be happy. Commit to yourself to try hard and do things you normally wouldn't do like join some random club or group. I think in most instances if you do this, you will probably meet many people who aren't good fits but like any good friend or person who changes our life, it's never a group, it's a single person. TRUST ME there are other people probably less than a hundred yards from where you live who quietly feel the same way you do. All it takes is facing the day, trying new things and exposing yourself to new situations as hard as it might be, to meet that one quality person who you can rely on and form a bond with that will last a lifetime. And if it doesn't work? That's ok too. I can't tell you how lucky (key word luck) I was to have been put on the dorm floor I was put on in college. Only a few years prior to that I was miserable after moving. Hardly had a friend in the world but that freshman year I happened to find a few of those lifelong friends I describe above who made that time enjoyable and memorable. It didn't happen because I'm some talented great person. It happend because of luck. Point being, luck is drawn by the law of averages. The more times you play the lottery, the better chance you have to win the jackpot. So it's important to focus on exposure to new people, not the fact that it may only result in 10 new people you have nothing in common with. I promise you, that if you do that you'll meet that one person by chance who will be someone you can confide in, who will also have a boyfriend far away, whose parents also cancel on her the last minute and will be a person who helps sustain you in your moments when you feel alone. You'll be that person for her/him as well and suddenly facing whatever comes next in life won't seem so awful knowing there is someone to vent to or hang out with at the end of those long days, who understands the way you feel.

By the way, I just saw your city. Don;t know if this is where you go, but that girlfriend who hated school I mentioned? She went to Pitt! Lived in one of the towers. She ended up transferring back to a different and smaller school and never looked back. Small world but further proof that it's important to remember there are lots of us out there to relate to. Just have to come find us :)