In many posts online, new students are sharing their excitement for starting at universities all over the country – but there’s also many students who are struggling, whether that be with homesickness, being in a new environment, or making friends.
It’s on this latter point that I have been concerned about particularly. It seems a common thread that many new students are concerned about making friends: especially feeling an obligation to make a roster of friends during induction/welcome week. Many replies from well-meaning people often suggest that the best plan of action is to “just do it,” or to strike up conversations with strangers on their course or in halls. But for some autistic students, this is easier said than done.
Some of us autistic people might lack the social abilities or confidence to be able to start a conversation with someone, and this puts us at a disadvantage when the supposed societal expectation of developing friendships is put atop us. This may well not affect everyone reading this post, but I hope I can show, to those who need to hear it, that making friends is not a necessity to being a university student, and you can take as long as you need.
“Striking up conversations with strangers is something like extreme sports for autistic people.”
Kamran Nazeer, Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism
I’m in an awkward position: I struggle with social interaction and confidence when it comes to talking to people, but I rely on frequent human connections for my mental health. I started university as a nervous 18-year-old, moving from home for the first time and all this during the fateful year of 2020. It’s fair to say I did not have the start to my university experience that I would have hoped for.
Given this setting, and as a result of the social challenges I face, I struggled to have any meaningful conversations (or conversations at all) with those sharing my hall. With little else to do, I resigned to completing my course (fully online at this stage) without much of a concern for friendships.
It wasn’t until the nearing of the end of my first year that I had a meeting with a fellow student. The meeting was set up by my university’s disability service, to talk about me possibly taking part in some voluntary work in an attempt to fill my very empty schedule. It was completely by chance that this student had a tube map in the background of their camera. That gave us the spark to converse about our shared special interest. After this, I started a society based around transport, and slowly, I was able to expand my connections, most of whom were linked to the society in some way.
You may be thinking: “How does this apply to me?”. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I have some superior knowledge about how to make friends that you can take advantage of, sorry about that. I guess my point in telling you this, is that you never know what opportunities might come along your way. Sometimes it’s not possible for us to be proactive when it comes to making friends, that just doesn’t come naturally to us, but it doesn’t mean we can’t have friends.
To make reading this worthwhile, I feel I should at least tell you some things I’ve learnt from my time as a university student on this topic, which may help you in some way.
1. Formal Communication: If you’re like me, and you need that human connection, but don’t have anyone to talk to, then you may want to consider doing something within the university (or externally) that relies on more formal communication. It could be working in the students’ union, taking part in a voluntary scheme or becoming a teaching assistant. For me, sending emails in a formal manner, with a clear goal, and no time pressure (compared to talking in-person) gives me the communication I need, but without the hassle or challenge that comes with talking to someone in a social environment. Now I’m starting my PhD, I’ve built up lots of professional relationships with staff in my school, module organisers, and colleagues in various departments all over Queen Mary; it’s nice to receive and respond to emails from people you admire, with a clear purpose.
2. Student Societies: You may get recommendations from people about joining societies within a Students’ Union. At this stage, it probably won’t be a surprise that I never did; in fact, I started a society before I joined one. If there’s a society that matches perfectly with your special interests, then that might be worth looking into, but in my case, there wasn’t any transport-based societies before I started it. Some societies get huge numbers of members, especially ones based around courses or nationalities. I never considered joining ones like this because I would have struggled with the busy events, not even considering my lack of social skills and discussion topics, even when it comes to my own degrees. If you’re looking for societies with other autistic people, have a look at your Students’ Union. If all else fails, you could start a new one. Unfortunately, the process wasn’t particularly easy for us at Queen Mary: the first attempt for the transport society was denied because it was “too niche”, when we did finally get approved, we immediately proved them wrong by getting 25 members in our first year. Worse of all, you need two people to start the process! So perhaps starting your own society might be a task for when you’ve met one other person with your interest.
3. Parties & Alcohol My final point, and I’ll keep this short as I think it’s one of the most given pieces of advice to any university student concerned about making friends, and rightly so I think: you don’t need to go clubbing, attend parties, or drink alcohol to fit in at university. The concept of being in a busy, hot, noisy, drunken environment while also required to talk to people is disorientating just to think about. As is becoming my catch phrase, I’ve never done this. I fully admit that the small group of acquaintances is not the pinnacle of what can be achieved when you have improved social skills, but it’s nice to know that I can meet up with them in the park or on campus without the expectation that it’s going to followed up with a night on the town.
When I started writing this, I was aiming for some quick thoughts on the expectation of friendships for autistic students and not a small essay; I promise. I hope in some way that it is helpful: it certainly would have been for me exactly 4 years ago this week. I think back to that time somewhat with sadness to see myself struggling so much with the university experience, but also with a new appreciation for who I am. It’s this week over the past couple of years that I go back and reflect on what brought me to this point, and to realise that I don’t need to change who I am to fit in.
Featured Image: Naassom Azevedo from Pixabay