For most of this semester, I’ve had a pestering feeling that I had difficulty putting a name on. My relationships to my friends in my core friend group began to feel different, and that has only advanced in recent weeks. Finally, after exclaiming to a couple of my closest friends that “This semester has really sucked,” but then not being able to explain what exactly I meant by that, I set to the task of naming the feeling.
The word I finally landed on was isolation.
I have felt increasingly isolated this semester, and it’s honestly only getting worse. My entire friend group has recently started dating one another, and even some of the couples who’ve been together longer seem to be feeling the stress of graduation coming and are spending more and more time together.
I’m happy for them all, and I hope that this does not come across in any other way. I could not be more thrilled that a bunch of people I love have found each other and seem to be happy in their newfound relationships.
The problem I’ve found is that I feel less and less at home when I’m with them, and I don’t really see there being a solution. The dynamic has shifted, and it feels like I’ve been left behind in its wake. My group no longer feels like a group, rather it feels like I’m a spare tire on an 18 wheeler (third wheeling wasn’t a good enough analogy for a whole friend group).
I notice it most now that at the end of the night, instead of everyone sitting around and talking, each couple goes their separate way until I’m left alone in my living room watching YouTube videos. That never really used to happen, but now it always does, and it leaves me feeling more lonely than ever.
I don’t even know how to approach this with them, and I really haven’t yet. The fact that if any of them read this it’ll be the first time they hear about it bothers me, but how do you ask a new couple who are already trying to figure out how to act towards one another to also figure out how to properly act within a friend group? That seems unreasonable, and I personally don’t want to ask anyone to do that.
It just leaves me in a weird position, and it sucks that this close to graduation I really feel like I’ve lost my sense of belonging at Villanova to a large extent. The end of my position at the paper had already somewhat left me reeling, and feeling like I’ve lost my core friend group, at least in part, is even worse.
I expected my last semester at this school to be something amazing, filled with Coming of Age movie vibes, late night conversations, and parties with my closest friends. What I got is a strenuous academic workload and a near complete loss of the sense of community that made me fall in love with this school in the first place, and that’s been really hard to deal with.
What has helped the most through this, and what I will most certainly remember, is the incredible run we’ve made in the tournament. Even though I picked us to win, I really actually did not expect our team to go very far. We have no players above 6’8″, we have no NBA prospects, and we play Chris Arciadiacono at all (for my non-Villanova readers, Chris is on the team for no reason other than that he shares a last name with his older brother Ryan, who won us a national championship). That combination doesn’t seem like a Final Four team, but somehow we’ve made it.
I expect us to go no further with the loss of one of our best guards, but regardless having made it at all has added an element to an otherwise really unpleasant end to senior year that I will never forget. Win or lose this weekend, the sense of community I’ve felt with the school as a whole getting to experience this has been amazing, and after 2 years of the pandemic spoiling the basketball experience that plays such a large role in going to Villanova, I have not taken a moment of this for granted.
This past week was a mixed bag. On back to back days, I found myself crying on a bridge in Manayunk, then exalting an advancement to the Final Four with a few of my closest friends. I’m definitely struggling right now, to say anything different would be an out and out lie. My mental health is not in a good place, and I feel displaced and confused about my life in general. More and more I just think I need a break.
I think I’ve ultimately landed on that I am going to live at home this summer, travel, and maybe just work waiting tables or something for a bit. I feel worn down, mentally and physically, and I don’t think I’d do myself any favors trying to adjust into the world in my current state. Real life can wait for a bit longer, and I’m starting to convince myself that that’s okay. I hope my parents see it that way too.
Song of the Week:
The Line 
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