First, there are almost certainly many people like you at your university, feeling like they aren’t making any friends. By our nature we see the groups hanging

First, there are almost certainly many people like you at your university, feeling like they aren’t making any friends. By our nature we see the groups hanging around having fun, not the other individuals heading back to their apartments alone. Initiating relationships can be a risk to our egos, as almost all of us fear rejection. “What if they don’t want me here”, “what if they don’t come to my party”, “what if I ask them to hang out and they say no”, “what if I end up not liking them “ etc… It takes effort, but if you can get comfortable at initiating relationships you’ll find that majority of time people are happy that you reached out. There is literature that can help to. Some cognitive behavioral therapy books deal with social anxiety and Dale Carnegie famously wrote “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, and I’m sure there are others who deal with the subject that I’m not remembering right now. Also, as other’s have mentioned, join clubs and extracurriculars, espoused those focused on a shared endeavor rather than just a shared interest. Team sports, volunteerism, hiking, or other group project based forums are great. I’m college I made a huge number of friends in the football team, and post college I made some dear friends on dodgeball and bocce teams. Let me give some very specific advice about Halloween in the hopes you can generalize. For Halloween, you have couple of options- 1) I’m willing to bet there is some form of public party at your college or in town. That’s your default option- make a costume. 2) Ask your acquaintances what they are doing for Halloween. They’ll probably tell you and ask you back what you are doing. Tell them you don’t really have plans, but might you might go to the public event in 1. If they didn’t have plans, invite them to come with you. If they did, they might invite you to them, so accept. Repeat with acquaintances until you are going with someone or small group. These are proto-friends. Halloween events are great because everyone is wearing a conversation starter- their costume. Something like “Oh my gosh, I love your costume, WandaVision was amazing” is almost guaranteed to at least get a smile and pleasant response. If you enjoy the conversation at all, get their contact info (and write down a quick note in your contact lists notes field about them- “awesome Vision costume, studying geology”), and invite them to join you and or your little group. By the end of the evening you should have had some bonding with a few people and contacts for more potential friends. Good luck, and remember everyone else wants someone to be their friend, too.