Have Your Friends Moved On Without You?

Have your friends moved on without you? The answer is yes. I remember answering this question when I came back from studying abroad in the fall semester during college. You can imagine that it’s not like coming back from summer because people have already formed connections during the 1st semester while you were gone. Additionally, it’s not like we expect our friends to stop their lives for us. Of course not! We haven’t stopped ours! However, it is quite a shock when you no longer feel like a puzzle piece in someone else’s life. It’s hard.

I’ve recently been feeling like this and I think it’s honestly part of post-grad depression. We’re all just kind of finding ourselves and others seem to be doing a better job at it. The thing is that I know who I am and I know what my goals are in life. You can imagine how much more confusing it can be for someone like me who loves friendships. However, I love friendships too much.

I have this awful habit of having high expectations for other people. I’m working on it, I know! However, it’s a hard habit to break and often I look at the snapshot of my friends on social media. Almost instantaneously I get sad about it. I see them with their new friends, looking well-adjusted into their new lives. Social, busy, and satisfied are the words I would describe. On the other hand, I am also busy. I just finished a master’s degree and I am getting ready for my next move to something else that I want to do. The thing is that my phone is met with silence most of the time and I find myself alone more than before.

To give you an accurate picture of my life up until this point, I was always social and a true extrovert. I really do feel energized from being around people and I like to keep busy. While in grad school, many of my classmates had full-time jobs, families, or both. So, very rarely did I have personal conversations with them. However, I still had a couple of friends I could turn to even though most of them were in relationships.

These days, I find myself staying in often. Many of my friends either live far away or are soon moving away. So, I don’t have many options when it comes to being around others. Of course, I could make new friends but I’m afraid of doing that because I view my friendships as irreplaceable. However, in a way, haven’t my friends replace me?

So, what do you do when you feel that your friends have moved on without you? You could be upset, you could try to find something to occupy your time, or you can be like me and do both. My point here is that I don’t have all the answers and I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to fix the situation. I could voice my feelings to my friends, but what good would that do? It doesn’t change anything. Right now, the only thing I could suggest is that things will get better and that this period of time in our lives will pass. It’s all an adjustment period so we can only take it how it is and try to make the best of it.

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