I’ve been attending FSU for the past 4 years; 3 in Republic of Panama campus where I had my freshman year (I’m from Panama), and my current year as a transfer student. My experience here has been mundane, and frankly, sad for me. I’m a 23M autistic guy, so social interactions have been close to non-existent for me. In a school that is party-centered and women majority, I’ve realized that being here wasn’t for me, but I’m deep closer into getting my degree that I just have to suck it up. Plus it was, in my opinion, the only American college with solid footing in Panama, right in the former Canal Zone/Fort Clayton area.
The advice around here to ease the loneliness I’ve been feeling throughout the year was “putting myself out there, joining clubs, reaching out to somebody”. I’ve done some of it, had few friends whom I invited lunch with me. But I was looking to make some female friends around here, I’ve had one, but wanted more. I think I am biting more than I can chew.
I’m not very attractive, nor convos come easily to me, heck I don’t feel like I have tried with more people, nor that I’ve actually did, I just don’t know anymore. I really thought that I can just pass through college and get my degree while living alone in an apartment with deeply atrophied social skills and a fear that cripples my way into people. I’m not interested in a lot a stuff and spent time convincing myself that I don’t need a girl nor anybody, because coming out as confident to one can give off creepy vibes, so I just avoid them. Yet I wanted a girl deep down. I walk every day to campus and people seemed cold and distant with serious faces, like they don’t want to talk to me, nor to check on me. It sounds selfish, but they’re just minding their own business, but I can’t see it through emotional lens, maybe it’s just me when I had all the attention at home and none outside and people back home had a smile in their face. And I come back to my apartment, dark and empty; I turn off the lights to save energy and money, it’s so lonely and deafeningly quiet that I was looking to get a dog but can’t for economic and scheduling reasons.
I like to be alone, but it feels lonely and empty, I have the solution in my face, and I can’t take it because of fear!
I just want to make things right, to better myself, hit the gym, and just let people get to me than getting to them. I’ve been doing bike rides across town to parks and forests but it gets boring after a while. I even convinced myself that I won’t find much in people when I talk to them, that it is just your typical college pals that have secrets in hand and indulge in stuff.
I pile myself up on excuses on not getting the resources I wanted and wasting them away thinking I can do this alone: reaching out, going to social anxiety events, workshops that can help me up my self-esteem, yet way too many societal rules and coursework piling overwhelm me into doing nothing. I feel like rambling but I’m trying to communicate online what I’ve been living, experiencing, and doing.
I feel stuck in here. I just want to unstuck a gear after another to better myself.
