Students · Finding Friends
Real Connection in a Surface-Level Place
You can be surrounded by people and still feel completely unknown. Here's how that changes.
It's entirely possible to be around hundreds of people a day and feel more alone than ever — proximity isn't the same as connection. Real friendship tends to require something that busy, surface-level environments rarely offer on their own: repeated, low-stakes honesty over time.
Building that kind of connection often means being the first one to say something slightly more real than small talk — how you're actually doing, what you're actually interested in. It's uncomfortable and it works more often than people expect.
Depth is built in small, repeated moments, not in one perfect conversation. Give it more time than it feels like it deserves.