For all the time and energy focused on class sizes, academic programs, internships, and dining halls in the college selection process, very few students are willing to give voice to their #1 worry: will they make friends at this college? This is a righteous concern, as human connections are essential to happiness. Several factors magnify the worry about friendships as students transition to college. First, most students just left peak friendships behind in high school. Regardless of where you fell in that complicated mess that is a high school social strata, you had eighteen years to develop relationships before you arrived in college. Many students lived in the same place for all of those years, so they have deep, long-lasting friendships built over literally thousands of hours in the cafeteria, on the school bus, on the soccer field, or on the stage in play practice. To really bring that home, you spend your senior year of high school celebrating those relationships through a series of milestones like prom, graduation, award ceremonies, senior nights for sports, and the “last” of everything. Whether you have two high school friends or fifty, you leave high school feeling very connected to those people.

 

And then your parents’ SUV rolls into a new campus, filled with unfamiliar faces, and you seemingly spend all of your time introducing yourself and sharing “fun facts.” With each new person you wonder, “will this be my new best friend?” while also wondering, “will I eat dinner alone tonight?” The contrast from your last months surrounded by people you have known for years is stark. That contrast can cause many new college students to panic about friendships.

 

The second reason friendship worry is magnified in college is that you have been told since birth that college is “the best four years of your life” and regaled endlessly by your parents or cousins or high school biology teacher with tales of “that time when we stole our rival’s mascot” or “that road trip we took to New Orleans” or how “my roommate was my soulmate and we stayed up until sunrise sharing our most personal hopes and dreams.” What the old people in your life forgot to tell you about were the anxious nights alone in their dorm rooms, the meals eaten alone, the awkward conversations, and the rejections by greek organizations and clubs that made them doubt their every decision. For most of us, it would be better to describe college as “an awkward start, followed by one “mid” year and two great years.”

 

The last magnification of friendship worries comes courtesy of social media. We all know that social media creates FOMO. We all know that everyone only posts the most flattering and exciting moments of their lives. Despite its name, no one turns on the camera for BeReal when they are searching for a friendly face in the dining hall. We can intellectualize the fact that our friends at other colleges are not having the time of their lives every minute, but it is really hard to avoid emotional comparison.

 

The contrast to high school relationships, societal messaging about college being the “best time of our lives,” and social media’s barrage of images of college students hugging friends in perfect outfits while parties rage around them, all contribute to a pretty significant feeling that the new relationships we are building in college are inferior. For many students, this feeling can lead to doubt about their college choice and damage their self-worth. How does a new college student recover from these bad feelings?

 

Give yourself a break.

Lower your expectations.

Pace yourself.

Practice being alone.

Do. Not. Panic.

 

Friendships take a long time to develop. I have known so many students who felt they did not fit in, had no friendships, and were lonely, during their semester. In fact, that probably describes the majority of students if they were being honest. Almost all of those students turn a corner in March or April of their first year. Some do so faster; some need more time; a very small number need to make a change to find their people. But the advice of “be patient” is about as welcome as someone telling you to “calm down.” Instead, I want to teach you some philosophy.

 

Aristotle and Friendship

Do not panic. I am not going to make you read old Greek philosophers (although you might do so in your college classes!). Aristotle is a Greek philosopher known for his advice on how we can become better people. Ambitious topic! While there are many reasons to think twice before digging into Aristotle (his views on slavery and women are particularly offensive), I find his ideas about friendship to be a useful way to reframe your effort to make friends in college. 

 

In Books 8 and 9 of Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle says that there are three kinds of friends: 1) friends of utility; 2) friends of pleasure; and 3) friends of the good. 

 

Friends of utility are friends that you love for the good you get from each other. That nice person who sits next to you in Calculus and helps you with problem sets during group work is a friend of utility. The hallmate who has the same dinner schedule as you. The person who volunteers with you at the local elementary school and shares an Uber with you on the way home. You value these people in your life. 

 

Friends of pleasure are just what the name implies – friends that you find spending time with pleasure. You have fun with these people. The hallmate that always knows where the party is, the person in your freshman seminar who organizes signups for an intramural team, the person who invites you to his older brother’s football tailgate. Especially in college, we want to have a good time. We need friends to do that. Our friends of pleasure give us someone with whom to share fun times.

 

Friends of utility and friends are pleasure are the first to develop in college. These relationships are why freshmen are constantly encouraged to JOIN something. If you join a club, sign up for an intramural sport, or merely work in a group during class, you are automatically engaging with others. Inevitably these engagements lead to conversations that are not about your club or sport or class. You spend time with your friends of utility doing those useful things, and you eventually discern which of your classmates or teammates, or clubmates are fun to be with. And suddenly you have friends of pleasure. You ask your intramural teammate to grab dinner after practice, or your classmate mentions a party that weekend, and soon you have people to spend your downtime with.

 

This is all good news so far. Thanks, Aristotle! If you join some clubs, are willing to talk to a few classmates, or ask a hallmate to grab dinner, you have friends. 

 

Many friends of utility or pleasure are developed in the first six to eight weeks of college. Everyone is excited to meet everyone. You are willing to “put yourself out there” and talk to strangers. You go to the Activities Fair and join thirty-seven clubs. You may call your parents and tell them about all the new people you are meeting. Hurray! Everyone takes a deep breath and thinks all is right in the world.

 

And then November comes.

 

Now, I am not going to blame the weather, but I am not not going to blame the weather. In many parts of the country, November is the start of colder and darker days - literally and figuratively. As those grassy idyllic quads empty and your walk to the library gets darker, many freshmen start to have a sinking feeling. The more you get to know that friend in the Investment Club, the more you cannot stand his overconfidence about his market knowledge. You start to notice that your hallmate has weird eating habits that make it hard to go anywhere fun off-campus. You are getting invited to parties, but are starting to run out of things to talk about no matter how many spiked seltzers you slurp down. Even friends who do not have annoying habits do not quite feel comfortable. You wake up one cold November morning and realize you cannot remember the last time you had a real conversation with someone in college. 

 

November is not because you failed at your efforts in making friends. If you have friends of utility and friends of pleasure, you likely did all the right things. But you have not achieved Aristotle’s third type of friendship: friends of the good. Friends of the Good are a “perfect friendship” according to Aristotle. These are men (and women - damn you, Aristotle!) who are good and alike in virtue. Friends of the Good are people whom you love because of their virtues – because of the person they are. You do not need to share activities, clubs, or classes, to care for this person. 

 

Friends of the Good are friendships that last. Friendships of Utility can end when your activity ends. Friendships of Pleasure are not that helpful when you need to talk to someone about a breakup, a bad midterm grade, or how annoying your mom can be. To truly be happy, says Aristotle, we need Friends of the Good.

 

I am not a Greek philosopher, but I suspect that the pit in your stomach in November is probably a realization that you do not have any Friends of the Good in college -- yet. That feeling of relief when you hop in the car of your high school friend the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving and immediately start joking around and finishing each other’s sentences? That phone call while you walk home from the library late on a Tuesday and convince your friend that she is cut out for pre-med? That text chain with your fellow summer camp counselors where you share random thoughts about your daily lives? Yeah, that is what Friendships of the Good feel like. 

 

How do you transition your Friend of Utility to a Friend of the Good? How do you find people with whom you share values? Where are all those lifelong friends your parents tell you about? One thing that Aristotle and I have in common is that we both say to be patient. It takes a long time to become Friends of the Good. Most develop from the other types of friendship over time and with a lot of trial and error. Aristotle says that one must acquire the experience of the other person, which takes time. We cannot expect to have more than a few Friends of the Good at any time; it takes too much time and commitment to have more. 

 

As you build friendships at college, do some reflecting on what you like about them. Your mom isn’t wrong to ask you one thousand questions about your new friends. Ask yourself those questions, too. What do you like about this person? What is new to you? Do you learn from them? Do you feel comfortable around them? Do they ask how you are doing? Do you have similar goals? How does this person treat others? These questions may seem simple or silly, but they can reveal what is important to you and others. 

 

Once you feel comfortable, try opening up with some of your friends. You do not have to share your every private thought, but perhaps suggest coffee the next morning with that friend of pleasure that you are hanging with at a football tailgate. During the Uber ride home from your service activity, tell your friend of utility about how sad you were about not making the Club Volleyball team. Some of these conversations will crash and burn. Your friend will be rude or dismissive. They may be too busy to talk. Eventually one of these conversations will continue, and you will be willing to have another.

 

Remember that Aristotle said that Friends of the Good make perfect friendships. He did not mention perfect friends. You do not have to like every single thing about a person to create a meaningful friendship. Indeed, many of my ride-or-die, friends for life, Friends of the Good can occasionally drive me crazy. I have almost nothing in common with some of them. We have different professions, locations, marital statuses, tastes in food, and tolerances for running long distances. (I weirdly ended up friends with the track team in college despite being unable to run more than a mile without crying.) 

 

We all have to muddle through our literal or figurative November’s dark and cold to get to our Friends of the Good. In the meantime, be positive and be patient.