PERSONAL

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Student Social Comparison Survey

7 years ago751 words

I'm surrounded by thousands of people here at university, but I spend most of my time alone, frustrated at my lack of connections. But I don't know how to form new ones. I keep wondering how many people are in the same position... so I wrote a survey to find out. I'd like to know what you think of it, if you read this!

The isolation's been getting to me. I mean, that could be the story of my whole life, the last decade especially so, but it feels as if being surrounded by people intensifies it, because the potential for connections in there, but I'm wasting the opportunity, missing my chance. When I was all alone with no real options for meeting people, it was psychologically taxing, but I felt that there was little that could be done from that vantage point. I made the internet my home, built and maintained websites, directed my social energy there. But now I feel like I really should be directing that energy to the real world around me - this is why I've been neglecting my websites lately - but... well, I'm not very successful at it.

Connections arise naturally, ideally, by going to the same places as other people... But I don't go anywhere. I don't know where to go. I go to classes, but I do that with my friend, as always, and never meet people that way. Societies turned out to have preexisting groups that I couldn't worm my way into, and, well, is that it? Do people meet at pubs? On apps? All the apps seem to be things like Tinder, though... There's all this stuff to let loose, boisterous people form their hedonistic bonds with one another, but for someone like, well, like me, I just don't see any options available.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious... Maybe most people never even think about this because they form connections entirely by chance and are satisfied with what they have, or meet people through the people they already know (which isn't going to happen in my position).

I keep wondering how many people are as lonely as me, but I don't know how to find out because of course they're all going to be hiding away, trapped like me. I keep wishing that there was some kind of online space where everyone from the university could gather and interact, but I suppose Facebook is that for most people. It feels fragmented, though; there are all these different groups for different classes and courses and modules and societies and so on... and I don't use Facebook actively due to my own fears, so that wouldn't even be an option for me anyway (I still need to conquer that fear; perhaps my isolation issues would be solved if I did).

I'm just curious about how I compare to others. Aren't we all? There's a university email system, where emails are sent to all students to inform them about course updates or things like that, and I've been mulling over the idea of writing a long 'social comparison survey', which I'd send to everyone via that in order to gather data about rather personal details.

I've written the survey, but I feel hesitant about actually going through with my plan because, well, it's weird, isn't it? A bizarre thing to do. I'd find it fascinating, but who else thinks like that? Would the 'normal' people just see it as something aberrant, mockable; would it be a huge social faux pas? Or would people really find it interesting too and be glad that I'd done it? Most likely is that it'd go largely ignored, but what little response it might get - if any - would affect me quite a bit, I imagine.

Anyway. The point of this post is that I'd like to show the survey to people who know me as my internet self so then I can gather some opinions about it before inflicting it upon the people I have to intermingle with in the flesh (including whether I should do so at all). The questions are tailored for the specific group of students attending my specific university, so some might not apply to you at all, but if you want to have a look at it, here's a link:

[LINK]

I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts about it. What I should change, how you think people might react, whether you find it interesting, things like that.