How can I rebuild my college social life?

Oh and I had a "friend" like this--always weird and negative about people behind their backs and then cozying up to them in person; "hated" someone one day and then rooming with them the next. Everyone realized this eventually on their own. Your friends will probably figure this out themselves. In the meantime, be polite and don't make your friendships with these girls about your ex-friend. She can dig her own grave.

honestly, it sounds like you might be growing up faster than your friend... embrace this. don't over think it, just get involved in a few campus activities, participate with some kindness, energy and enthusiasm and new people will flock to you. the world is full of assholes, who really are just people that are stuck in a stage of their growth and are taking their anger out on everybody else. All you can do is treat them with compassion and move on. Anger is frustration caused by unrequited desire. i.e. we are all big babies mad about the world not working our way... we need to get over ourselves. AND, we are all different and we all become more whole in our own ways... life is awesome when you find a few kindred spirits and stay open to the ways other people are figuring their shit out while you figure yours out. Shun idols, resist being a follower. Find your own path. Laugh about it. Your former best friend will probably reenter your life at some point, maybe looking for help, maybe to reconnect on a deeper level, or maybe to just be an asshole. it happens. You've already had the big thought here... now it's time to act on it and fill your life with people that like you, are interested in friendships that have a 2 way flow in them. I paid a shrink a lot of money to learn these lessons, I am passing them on to you for free.

Oh, first year housing dramas. They're so common, there's got to be memes for them. Plus people are still figuring themselves out in first year. I made much closer, intimate friends later on in college. Anyway, be patient when developing new friends. It takes a while. Your ex-bff didn't steal or sabotage your relationship with any of those other gals: who says you always have to visit them at their house? Go out on friend dates for coffee, or a walk to the park, or dinner. Call up your pals to do this one-on-one. Work on slowly building up good friends. And hey, you said you applied as an RA? You'll meet tons of people that way! All of my friends who became RAs really bonded with each other. Dealing with freshman drama as mediators has a way of maturing people and bringing them together.

You didn't like this girl but pretended to because she was convenient. She said and did things that annoyed you but you let her believe all was well for years until you no longer needed to rely on her socially, and then confronted her and essentially cut her off cold. And now you're bothered that she's become friends with the people you introduced her to. Your plan was for your friends to also find her "boring condescending and rude" and neither she nor they are acting like you'd planned for them to act. I can see why you'd be confused and upset. Luckily you make friends easily. Universities are populous places and you'll be there several more years. Find people whose company you actually enjoy and appreciate them for who they are. The more you are an honest friend to others, the more friends you'll have.

It sounds like your ex-bff is an introvert. That doesn't excuse a lot of things that she did, but understanding how introverts work might help you find some inner peace about some of her behavior. Like why she wanted to only have one-on-one time. Or why she said your friends were too overwhelming but is buddy-buddy now that she knows them better. It's very possible that she was completely honest when she said they were too draining and annoying to be around (because she didn't know them) and she's also being completely honest when she says she wants to spend time just hanging out one on one with the same people (now that she knows them and also because one on one is much easier for introverts). Most introverts still need to socialize, they would just rather spend a lot of time with a very small number of people, and it's OK for them to be that way.

Are you getting married this spring? No? Then don't pressure yourself to forge immediate, deep bonds with people to fill out your bridal party. Instead, make conscious decisions about your social life. Be intentional about spending time with different people/groups. Your best friend hasn't ruined your college social life. You've learned that when you get close to this person, you tend to exclude/turn down other friends. But! You're only halfway through freshman year! You have plenty of time to reach out to your new friends. This is easy: "Hey, [New friend], sorry for the radio silence lately. Want to take a study break some evening this week and catch up?" or "[New friend 1], [New friend 2], and [New friend 3]--hey guys, I miss you! It's my own doing for being a hermit last semester. Want to get dinner this Friday?" With regard to your best friend, it may make sense to avoid a lot of hours-long hanging out in her room--unless, that is, you're comfortable getting a text from other friends and leaving to go hang out with them. In other words, don't put yourself in a position where you're going to feel like you need to get your best friend's approval or buy-in before you can spend time with others.

I would suggest trying a bunch of different campus activities, they're a great way to meet people. Also, having friends in different circles can prevent some of the drama you've discussed above, as your improv troupe friends won't poach your dorm friends won't poach your student government friends won't poach your rock-climbing friends. Building a heterogenous social network gives you access to more diverse and interesting perspectives and simultaneously ensures one bad actor won't ruin your social life. Also, I'd think carefully about your relationship. A long distance relationship entails investing a lot of time one person at the expense of broadening your social network. Unless you plan on marrying this guy as soon as you're done with school, you could miss out on a lot of valuable connections in college and end up with only a broken heart to show for it.

One thing it took most of college for me to learn was that you don't have to be friends with someone, if you don't want to be. Even if that person is in your basic social circle. You can let them be, and they can let you be, and you can go to the same parties and make polite small talk and just... never really go beyond that. And that's fine. It's not a binary between BESTIES and ENEMIES. My advice to you is to become aware of that. You can be polite on the surface, and share mutual friends, and not be Super Duper Besties 4 Evah. If you don't like spending time with her, don't. Let her be friends with your friends. Continue to be friends with your friends. Be gracious. I'm 31. Right now my entire circle of "besties" from college and the city we all lived in post-college are on a Girls Weekend In Vegas as a bachelorette party for the one girl in the group I've never been close to. Since it's her wedding, we've never been close, travel is involved, and I live in a different city now anyway, I kind of don't care. I've had plenty of fun times with all those people that Not Friends Girl wasn't involved in, and I doubt she was sitting at home crying that Everyone Was Hanging Out Without Her.

Hi, since you are just looking for opinions and anecdotes, I'll share. My first semester of college was pretty terrible, friend-wise. A high school friend who annoyed me wanted to room with me in college. I didn't want to, because I suspected she'd never want to meet anyone new, but I couldn't get out of it. I did get her to compromise and we chose freshman housing that consisted of 5-person apartments. Ultimately, that was the wrong decision, because each apartment was very insular and I never really met my neighbors, and I didn't much like or connect with my other roommates. Her long-term HS boyfriend was also at our school, a year ahead of us, and she was quite happy to just spend time with me and him and didn't want to invite other potential friends to hang out with us. I ended up being very jealous of the girls in dorms who seemed to form tight friendships with all their hall-mates. I also remember having those depressing thoughts about how I wouldn't be able to field a bridal party if I were to get married tomorrow, and how college was supposed to be better than high school, but it wasn't, and now I had to drag myself through 4 more years of school before, hopefully, things would finally look up in the "real world". I'm sorry you feel that way, I know how that feels, and I also know that when people told me to not worry about it, it would get better, that I didn't really believe that would be true for me. So I hope you are able to believe me when I say, it will get better. First term freshman year is when EVERYONE is testing everything out, and everything will be so different by the time you graduate. I did end up with the close friends I had always wanted, and 5 of them were my bridesmaids when I got married. If you had told me that on February 11th of my freshman year, I would not have believed you for a second. These were the girls that I was jealous of because they had so many dorm hall-mate friends. But those friends weren't lasting friendships for them, for the most part, because they were friendships of circumstance. We even call these type of circumstantial friendships "First Year Friends" in my group. Anyway, you sound like a person who has no trouble making friends, and all you need is time. Good luck and stay positive! You have my permission to forget about your old friend- she sounds like she was dragging you down. Let her do her thing, you do yours, you're gonna be fine.