I got a ‘memory’ through Facebook about two weeks ago marking the day I enrolled into the University of Oklahoma (OU) exactly a year ago. It made me think about what I had actually accomplished in my first year of college. There are many: I lived alone (while it was in a dormitory, I did not have a roommate for the longest time), I got my first job, and I even made friends. I know it may not seem like a big deal to make friends. Let me tell you something. It wasn’t easy. I’m not exactly a very friendly person. In fact, I’m not one to be spontaneous and trust total strangers to see who I truly am. It was quite difficult to be an introvert at a college that has a reputation for active social student life. Activities that were especially social were even worse.

During the summer before college, I attended Camp Crimson, which I thought would be a form of freshman orientation. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. I was put into a group of people I didn’t know and was told to “drop my cool.” That basically meant that I had to pretend to like people and to like socializing about topics that didn’t hold my interest. Camp Crimson was a three-day event and I could tell it would be the longest three days of my life. My first day, I moved into a dorm room. I didn’t think anything of it, the room seemed quite nice, to be honest. What I didn’t know was that I would have a roommate. I thought it wouldn’t be so bad. I grew up with three younger sisters, so I can handle sharing a room with one girl my age. I was the first one there, so I unpacked my things and made the bed. When our group got together, we had to introduce ourselves (name, major, hometown). We did a lot of icebreakers. In fact, so many that I already knew what to say when it was my turn. I recited the monotone “my name is Allyssa, I’m from Ponca City, and I’m an anthropology major.” Sometimes, they would mix it up, like asking: “what’s a scar you have and how did it get there” or “what’s a fun fact about you.” That’s where it became difficult. How do I know if something about me is interesting? Also, I was a fairly safe child, therefore, the amount of scars I have is limited. Aside from the icebreakers, the celebratory get togethers and the competitions, it wasn’t too bad. Oh, wait. It was all icebreakers, celebratory get-togethers and competitions. That being said, not many people knew anything about me other than my name, major, hometown.

My roommate got there about an hour or so after I did. Her name was Racheal. I got along with her for about ten minutes. I told her my name, my major and I told her I wasn’t very sociable. She was cool with that – at first. Racheal would not talk to me at all during our group events. Even though she never spoke to me during our group activities, Racheal wanted to converse with me in the dorm room. I can tell fake niceness when I see it, so I thought it was useless to even try socializing with her. She didn’t want to be friends; she wanted to feel less guilty about avoiding the introvert. In fact, only one girl, Courtney, would even speak to me. She was one of our three group leaders and she was a very nice girl. We always had good conversations. She always seemed interested in what I had to say.

The next evening, there was a party with a ‘retro’ theme. Many people dressed in what they thought was 80s and 90s fashion. I attended wearing a dark green sweatshirt tucked into my high-waisted jeans. I got inspiration from my dad’s high school yearbooks from the early 1980s. I figure I might as well be a realistic 80s reference. Everyone else, though, was wearing bright colors and tutus and leg warmers. I was still excited about Retro Night, though. During my senior year of high school, I had quite the obsession with 80s music. So, I was ready to show people a side of me that I liked. However, they didn’t play a single song dating before 2000. I was furious. What kind of retro party doesn’t have retro music? Isn’t that the point? Anyway, I decided to move away from the dance floor, as I cannot dance, and found the bingo room. Yes. There was an entire room used for bingo. I was ecstatic. That meant I wouldn’t be standing around all night doing nothing. I could play bingo until we were able to leave.

The next couple days came and gone about as to be expected. There were icebreakers, a relay race, and diversity training. I didn’t know we would have diversity training. It was quite helpful, though. I was able to openly socialize with a couple people, because socializing was required. After that, our group met for the last time. We all gave out our Twitter names, Instagram usernames, and whatnot. As someone who only had Facebook at the time, I offered to let them ‘friend’ me. I got home that night and only one person friended me: a guy from the group I had never spoken to.

So that was my first experience as a student at OU. It wasn’t great. However, it wasn’t a total loss. I managed to make a friend or two and got to know a bit about student life from an upperclassman. I may not have socialized at all during this disaster of a time, but it made me realize how much of the campus is open and how much I really have to talk to anyone. The answer is never, because even though there are social events on campus, that doesn’t mean I have to participate. It also means that people are only social to you when you engage in social interaction. It’s quite nice.