{"id":4006,"date":"2009-11-12T13:52:37","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T17:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/UpbeaT\/?p=4006"},"modified":"2009-11-12T13:52:37","modified_gmt":"2009-11-12T17:52:37","slug":"why-is-it-so-hard-to-make-good-friends-at-u-of-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2009\/11\/12\/why-is-it-so-hard-to-make-good-friends-at-u-of-t\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is it so hard to make good friends at U of T?"},"content":{"rendered":"For the longest time, I thought there was something wrong with me: on some days, when the sun refused to shine, I would slip into a sullen state of emotional treachery. Most times, this ended with me feeling utterly alone and friendless. It became unbearable not only in terms of loneliness, but also, to a certain extent, bitterness.\n\nThe trouble always starts off with assumptions<\/em>. Although I'm simply a person who has met a lot of undergraduates from U of T, people always assumed that I was this ridiculously extroverted person who had a whole ton of friends. The truth is that I'm actually as introverted as introverts can be. Add to this the fact that school makes the Gossip Girl type of glamorous social life an impossible feat, and the number of \"I-will-pee-on-you-if-you-get-stung-by-a-jellyfish\" friends I have here at U of T\u00a0 is probably something like three. If you round it off, it's pretty much non-existent.\n\nLet's face it: even though we don't consciously project expectations of our undergrad lives in terms of building friendships, who doesn't wish for that sense of togetherness and belonging that emanates from TV shows like Friend<\/em>s? Fine, your GPA might be a little sucky and your career prospects might not be looking up anytime soon, but while in university, we could at least build a strong support network that would leave that <\/em>part of our lives fulfilled.\n\nThe key reason for the difficulty in establishing and building genuine friendships, I believe, is that most of us take friendship for granted. True, on any given day you never know whom you'll meet, and in that sense, building friendship is a rather serendipitous event. But anything beyond merely becoming acquainted <\/em>involves effort, something that most of us are lacking \u2014 for school alone.\n\nLike romantic relationships, platonic love is a bit of a gamble. While you can't point to a stranger and immediately foresee whether or not you'll end up becoming great friends, you have all the chances in the world to take a risk, a leap of faith, and initiate a conversation to get to know him or her better. Good things are often unplanned. In fact, I met all of my closest friends this way: we started talking about something trivial, found out that we didn't dislike each other, and, through a series of fateful interventions and conscious efforts on both parts, brought our friendships through some major roadblocks.\n\nSo why not join a club? Challenge yourself by exposing yourself to something new? Cool people exist in every corner of the world \u2014 you just got to find them. Keeping an open mind is important for accepting other people, but also for monitoring your own growth.\n\nClosely linked to the phenomenon of \"no friends\" is the significantly more destructive issue of \"bad friends.\" These people drag you into toxic relationships. Below is a list of initial warning signs signalling such an unhealthy situation:\n