im a 24 year old college student that just came back to school after dropping out two years ago. i know absolutely no one in school anymore because all my friends have graduated. has anyone been in this position before??? How did you meet people?? thanks.
Talk to the people in your classes, especially the smaller classes. You guys have something in common(being in the same class), so that could be an easy conversation starter.

Study groups are always good. I assume you’re not in dorms as you are 24…but if you are, leave your door open and say hi at least to people on your wing/floor. Then maybe strike up a conversation and see what they’re into.

im not in the dorms. and talking to people in class isn’t that easy. what do i say? "hey this class sucks, you wanna hang out some time?" It just seems awkward as hell.
If someone in class told me they liked David Bowie, we would be halfway to becoming bffs.

It isn’t easy, but would you rather sit around and do nothing? Plus, it’s not like you’re gonna be that blunt. It’s a gradual process, so just talk to them a few times during class then mention getting coffee, a bite to eat, studying together, etc.

GL!
man, i guess i really have to work on my social skills. asking someone in my class to go get coffee seems sooooo weird. it just seems so uncommon since i have never heard of someone doing that before.

Just talk to them in class if you are that uncomfortable about it…baby steps…not like monster leaps. You talk to them in class and I’m sure you’ll become friends if you both think each other are chill. Talk about class, the homework, how annoying/cool the teacher is.

Like Penis Mightier(hahaha Japan US Relations), it’s all about baby steps. If the situation seems right, then ask the person/people to hang out sometime.

Also, practice makes perfect. I used to feel the same way you do, but I forced myself to be more social, and it only got easier over time. Just be confident in yourself and force yourself to talk to people.
it just seems so weird to practically ask a guy out on a date.
You are not a guy? Then let me revise my post to say that anyone who told me in class that they like David Bowie would be already 50% of the way there to being wife material.
I’ve been kind of in the same boat. I just moved in last week. Do you have roomates? Just by making small talk with my roomates, I’ve managed to meet my neighbors and some of my roomates friends. It’s not that hard.

In your case, just say a few things to somebody next time you go to class. You don’t have to ask anybody to hang out right away. Just small talk with them and then maybe in a couple weeks, they’ll ask you to go to a party of some sort.

Wait, you’re a girl? If you’re in Cali, you wanna hang out?

haha just kidding. If anything, being a girl should make it easier. Like we’ve said, just make small talk and get to know people. Everything else should come naturally. Don’t think about it too much, you’ll only psych yourself out!
no, im a guy. thats why it seems weird to ask a guy to hang out, because it sounds like a date.
hahaha okay, I see where you’re coming from. Don’t rush it and just go with the flow. Chit-chat, and who knows, you might get invited to a party or something. Maybe getting coffee isn’t the best idea though…hahaha

Do you go to a big or small school? What state?
I’m older than you and in undergrad. I know the feeling. The easiest way to get friends is to either do intramural sports or take some sports classes (soccer, badminton). Find clubs, either through your major or stuff that you’re interested in and join them.

I imagine you live off campus so try to hang around after classes instead of taking off all the time. Study outside or maybe in the restaurant area.
yeah, i definitely need to join a club or two. any idea how i find out about clubs around campus. im a business student, so i assume theres business clubs or something??? haha.

I would go to the Associated Students (sometimes called ASI) section of your college’s website. They’ll have clubs and likely intramural sports there. The business department page may have business related clubs listed.
join a volunteer club? always easy to meet people while doing good work

you are 24 years old and aren’t getting any younger. You need to stop this shit and grow up. Force yourself to
I’ll be 23 and coming as a Sophmore or Junior to a traditional college learning setting next year, so I can relate.
who cares if you have "friends" in college? don’t you have friends outside of school? i don’t keep in touch with any of my friends/roommates in college. perhaps once a year if that and that’s on facebook. not that we weren’t good friends then cause we were, but people drift apart.

now if you want friends for study groups or whatever, then that’s a different story.

Talk to people in your class. I know some classes do Ice Breakers to get the social cloud rolling.

Also, try going to school events and join club activities. You can also volunteer as well.

If I were you, I’d not create the opportunity but let the opportunity create itself. Don’t rush it, it will happen. As long as your body language allows it, be open and approachable, someone will say something in your direction, pick up on it and start chatting. Then next class say hello to that same person and engage in another conversation.
Clubs, worked for me. I have more friends than I know what to do with.

Yes, paying for friends who you may or may not get along with is always a good idea.
usually u get put into groups for some of your classes, after class just ask if said group member wants to grab lunch or something, talk, blah blah, what you doin this weekend, etc…

Why the frat hate, bro? I wasn’t in a frat, my school didn’t have frats, but I don’t hate them. Do you have a specific reason?

I went to quite a few of the pledge week activities my first year. From my experience frats consist of the socially inept, those who only have party friends, cliquey douches, and those who think they are too cool to not be in a frat.

On top of that, you pay a pretty big hunk of change for what? The activities they do dont cost that much, here you still have to pay for alcohol at the parties, and some frats make you buy the awkward looking jersey they like to wear around in groups like middle school girls wearing the same outfit to school.

The frat guys I know that are actually down to earth are in the frat that gets the bad rep for being uncool because they dont throw big events or w/e. The "cool" frat consists of guys who dont talk to you if you arent greek and walk around like they own the whole school, and no one exists but them.

It seriously reminds me of a super sized version of highschool cliques. They talk trash about each other and many of them dont even know what real friendship is. It may be different at other schools, but that is the image they project here and when I went to UF frat parties I got the same feeling.

Personally, I joined the wakeboard club and met some of the coolest people I’ve ever known. We do things together aside from partying and we all share a common interest. Other friends of mine I met through living in the dorms and people in classes.

I can see where you are coming from. Bad personal experiences can easily turn you off to something. So I understand that.

In my experience, frats aren’t all that bad. I lived a block over from frat street at IU, stayed in a UCLA frat for a week when I visited a buddy, stayed in frats in tons of other schools when I was visiting buddies for the weekend, and although I was never a frat guy, I never felt unwelcome. Most frat guys are the opposite of socially inept. They are outgoing, wanna have a good time and being in a frat is the easiest way to do that. Sure, you have the occasional douche, but where don’t you find those? You go clubbing, you will run into douches. You go to house parties, you will run into douches. Hell, you go to the supermarket, you will run into one. I will argue that you will find the same proportion of douches in frats that you will in the real world.

As for paying to make friends, you could say the same about anyone throwing a party. I don’t know if that stands to reason, to be honest. Throwing a party isn’t cheap. Booze for a couple hundred people, paying time and a half for campus security personnel (we had to, in my school), paying depost for the tap for the keg, paying for a DJ… that’s a large chunk of change. Now imagine doing that on a regular basis every year. It adds up fast. That money is just for the partying aspect of frats. They also have other socializing events, like mixers and what not, with other frats/sororities and that costs money too. Then add the philanthropy and it’s not cheap by any means.

Here’s another way of looking at the cost that you say is used to buy friends. Add up all the money I spent eating out every time I went out with my buddies in college, all the money we spent when we went to the Met or MoMA, or visited NYC/Boston/Philly/Miami/wherever else as an excursion, all the sports games we went to, all the parties we threw together, every time we did any activity together (movies/paintball/laser tag/pool/whatever else), it would be a lot lot more than the frat dues I would owe if I were in a frat all four years.

If you think frats are cliquey, ask any random new member to your wakeboard club how cliquey think your club is. You would be surprised.

Anyway, to get back on topic, I wanna say that frats shouldn’t be discounted just because they might get a bad rep. Amongst my friends, some of those with the best jobs got them through their frat connections.

To the OP, join clubs, intramural/club sports teams, try out for frats if you want to, talk to people in class, people in the library quad or wherever, people in the student union. When I first moved to Cali and didn’t know a single person there, I was checking my email in the student union. It was the first week of school. There was this girl sitting next to me on her myspace and I go, I like your layout… you know, it’s funny that I have myspace and I don’t have a single person from California on my myspace. She’s like, why? And I go, because I just moved here, and we just laughed and started talking. That weekend, I went to a house party with her, met her friends, then I started going to parties with her friends and met their friends. So yeah, all you really gotta do is talk and shoot the shit, because very few college kids would say no to making new friends. By the way, I don’t really have a myspace page.

That’s the thing, you have to pay the dues… plus for the parties and going out etc… I am not going to not go out to eat with friends or go to games with friends because I am in a frat.

As far as our club being cliquey, on the contrary. We are already the biggest sports club on campus (over 450 members, 50-60 truly active) and the more people we have who are active the more publicity we get and the more the school recognizes us. All of our true parties are BYOB and completely open. Club registration is open and free. Not only that, but the club has percs…with out a price. We make all of our new members feel as welcome as possible. We carpool to Orlando to go OWC (a cable park) and we always try to grab a new face or two to get to know them.

What’s worse about frats is that they require you to spend a certain amount of time with the frat brothers.

I’ve talked to numerous people who have been or are involved with frats. The general consensus is that if you arent joining with friends, it isnt a great experience.

The frat dues don’t really stop you from going out with your friends though. What are the annual dues at your school’s frats? None of my friends had cost-prohibitive dues, neither did my ex who was in a sorority. Maybe the time commitment to the frat will compromise the time you spend with your non-frat friends, but in the OP’s case, that shouldn’t be a problem, because he says he doesn’t have very many friends.

What I was trying to get at was that as open as an insider might think their organization is, it almost always seems cliquey to someone from the outside trying to break in. The easiest example I can think of are the crews on OT like, say, the Vag Crew. I post there now, but in the beginning, it took me a while to break through. Even now, I am not one of the "core" members. The same goes for the NFL crew or NBA crew or any other crew. Now me, personally… I don’t really care; I will keep posting. Ask any of the non-crew members and they will say the crews are cliquey. I founded and presided over two student clubs on campus in undergrad, and as welcoming and open as we thought we were, there were people on the outside who always thought we were a clique. Frats are the same way, really.

My ex joined a sorority with her best friend, but they had a falling out and she hated going to any of the sorority shit ever after. I have tons of friends who joined frats where they didn’t know a single person and they love it even after they have graduated. So you don’t really have to join with a friend. How is it different from joining a club? You join because you wanna make new friends while you do something you enjoy. Having a support group to fall back on while you are going through the initial "oh shit I don’t know anyone here" stage isn’t a prerequisite for anyone joining any social organization.

As for spending time together, they better have a rule. Don’t the core group of your club’s members show up for the events and spend a certain amount of time together? It happens in every organization. If frats didn’t have that rule, people only show up for parties and never for philanthropy, ever.

Anyway, like you said, you had bad experiences with the UF frats. I wish you hadn’t. I would ask the OP to talk to people in frats at his school and see what they recommend. If they seem like cool people, if it seems like your scene, give it a shot. If not, at least you know it’s not an option.
I was never in a frat, but I am pro-frat from a theoretical standpoint. I would definitely look into them.
Just a suggestion. If you’re into football bring that up on Monday about the games. Then ask if they go anywhere to see the game. Ask them about the place then go there and maybe run into them there.
You can argue all you want about the cliqueyness of frats, how it’s stupid to pay dues, etc etc. I’m not going to take a side, because both sides have valid points, but I think the biggest perk of being affiliated are the hook-ups, especially if you’re in a big well-known frat such as SAE or KS. Now that I look back, I would have rushed for that one reason alone, but the fact that I’m going into my last year makes it a bit prohibitive. Oh well.
dude, you dont have to straight up ask a stranger to go hang out. you can gradually talk to people over the weeks and get acquianted in class. eventually, you will both feel comfortable enough to be like "hey, what are you doing friday"
I was like that when I moved from Arizona to Colorado.. I just talk to people in my classes and meet up with them for study sessions.. One friend I met my second semester here has become a very close friend, and we now hang out on a regular basis outside of classes.
I was never in a frat, and never seriously considered joining one. Partially because of the money aspect, partially because I knew I didn’t really fit into that type of crowd. But if you have the money, and that sort of thing is socially appealing to you then I would DEFINITELY consider joining a frat.

Not only is it a good way to meet new people (of both sexes) but it can really hook you up with some long term career opportunities too.

What college do you go to?
I’m just as fucked as you, I got kicked out a year ago from school, I’m going back in january and I’m gonna be such a fucking loner. I’m back in town again and I still have like 5 friends but, they have their own cliques and shit now and are always like "but you won’t know anyone at the parties" if I ask to come along. Once in a while I do get to go along, and I do have fun but it’s just fun, I have a few acquaintances, but no friends there.

Class really isn’t a social environment, people are always busy and you have like 5 mins before class only to really talk to people, and maybe if you’re lucky 5 mins afterwards. Not to mention some people sit in groups, or some people just don’t want to be disturbed.

Doesn’t help that I’m indian as well, and most people are big jock white guys, or preppy white girls. The indian crew is so fucked up, not to mention I’ve never gotten along with anyone like that, they’re all so ghetto and annoying.

Right now it’s saturday night and I wish I had something to do. I just have no idea where I could show my face at.

you: "what did you think about today’s assigned reading?"

them: "I thought it was cool…i liked blah blah blah"

you: "oh hell yeah dude, i agree"

do that with a few people for a few weeks, then suggest a study group outside of class somewhere cool (somewhere you can study but also have fun… a quiet bar, pool hall, round table w/ an arcade or something). study a little, have a drink or play some games afterward… bam, friends.

then again, I know what you guys are saying. In most of my classes throughout college there was no room for socializing because it was just a come and go environment… Go to class, get through the lecture, and leave. Now that I’m a senior and I’m taking my major courses, I’ve been seeing the same people 4 days a week for over a semester or two. I could easily ask any of them to hang out and I’m sure they’d be interested. That wasn’t the case in any of my general ed classes.
The OP, paranoidandroid, hasn’t responded to the recent posts so maybe he found a friend!!

When you show up again please answer my last post.

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