I don’t want to lose our friendship

I am a second-year student pursuing my Engineering course. I have been from a school, which I hated throughout my teenage years. I never liked that place, I never liked being around those people who put me down always. Every morning, the walk from my school gate to the classroom was the worst journey. I lost myself. I was tired of putting up a fake smile every time to all those teachers and my so-called friends. With all those hatred and sadness, I graduated from school.

Thankfully We had a lockdown. That period made me introspect myself in many ways. I faced myself for the very first time in my life and differentiated what I need and what I don’t. Finally, I got myself admitted to a college with a course that I wanted to pursue.

Tried all those ways to bring me out of my comfort zone. I liked the way people complimented each other which never happened in my school. I felt different. Within a couple of months into my college journey, The Covid restriction was relaxed and we were called to the college. Found a company of my interest and patched up with them and things were going great between us. We are three of us. They are the best people I have met until now!

Again after a couple of months, Lockdown has imposed again and we had shifted back to online. Things were going smoothly until I had certain issues. I was frustrated once it was back online. Still, I managed to get into a club and became the CORE member of the same club within the next month. I was exhilarated that finally, things are happening. But things didn’t go on well once it was back OFFLINE. I couldn’t relate to my friends.

During our convos, I couldn’t relate to their talks. That’s when I understood, that our interests and mindset are different now. I couldn’t accept it. I suppressed my feelings. But that ended up in having minor internal hate for them. I hated to fake a smile on them. I couldn’t get it. We would have frequent differences of opinions, which would always end up in either one of us suppressing the talk by keeping quiet.

But they are the best people when we do anything crazy and have always stood by me while I was down. No doubt in that. But still, that concern of not relating to each other still hurts me. It makes me think about my school’s incidents. So I try to avoid spending much time with them. I would have my lunch early and would go to the library. My friends did confront me about this and I just let them know that I am ill and have mood swings often. I know they aren’t satisfied with my answer, but they did give me space.

I don’t want to lose our friendship. I always overthink this issue. I am unable to share this with anyone. I feel lonely even after being in a group. I try my level best to go on pace with them, But most of the time I fail and end up smiling at them.