Not only is living on your own for the first time daunting, but college comes with many expectations. Every adult talks about their college friends, and it seems like there is an intense pressure to make lifelong connections. That can be a stressor throughout college, but especially at the beginning when you don’t know anybody. 

In college, the list of people you know stretches indefinitely — roommates, their partners, classmates, coworkers— it’s a massive web. But as we get older, that web often condenses until it eventually dwindles into your own remote family. While it’s easy to pass this phenomenon off as “becoming an adult” and “getting older,” these statements ignore the fact that we have structurally ensured that loneliness is an outcome of our lives.