Ask HN: How can I make the most out of high school? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I make the most out of high school?

I'm in high school. Soon, I will be in college. Before, I’ve focused mainly on studying and pursuing solitary passions, but not doing social activities. However, I now feel that I'm missing out on typical teenager life, and I'll have regrets when I'm an adult.

I just watched an anime following a group of close friends in a band as they pass through high school. I've seen people online state that the anime reminded them of their own high school lives, but it doesn't remind me of my current life at all; it's way too carefree and fun.

My online friends have told me that they don't have close friends either, so my life is normal.

Today, I saw this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aanfmf/whats_a_very_common_thing_that_you_just_cannot/ecuao12. Granted, the person is saying that they don't relate to looking back on high school. However, the topic is about common things that one can’t relate to, and some repliers said that their own HS lives were carefree. Now, I again feel I am missing something.

I like programming, and I've become interested in type theory. I doubt that other people in my school care about this stuff.

I take art class, but it's a solitary activity between me and my teacher, not together with other students.

I don't know how to make close friends. I can talk to people, but I can't suddenly form a close relationship with somebody. Friendship can’t be forced; it develops naturally. Yet, I've never made a close, loyal friendship, only casual friendships.

Before, I've been looking forward to college so I can study my interests. Now, I feel afraid of ending high school.

Is it normal that I don't have close friends and that I'm solitary? Am I missing out on anything?

What hobbies do you advise me to adopt that I can do in a group, with camaraderie?

Will college be the same or different than high school? Can I have the same kind of youthful fun when I'm an adult?

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Join a group, any group.

Close friendships come with time, make the time for that friend and do things together even if it's dumb. You're not there to impress them or vice versa but just the best of them and the best of you sometimes meet up and show the other person that there is something admirable, in morals and values or skills like your programming. You have something to share and time is the most valuable. So make some time with the people you want to be close to.

This. Some ideas I tried (some of them too late - try earlier!): board games, trading card games, martial arts, dancing, snowboarding, ... - they can all be awesome social activities. You could look at it as a numbers game - the more groups you try, the more people you meet. You'll find someone cool at some point.

> Am I missing out on anything?

From my experience - I wish I tried more at school times. It's much harder once everyone has their own life / family to take care of.

Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate it. I remember showing a friend in my AP CS class the benefits of sum types for representing errors. (We use Java and I wanted to show a better alternative to its nulls and exceptions). He understood what I showed him and thought it was neat. I think that ties in with what you said about showing “the other person that there is something admirable, in morals and values or skills.” Most people probably don’t care about type theory because they’ve never heard of it, but I hope that if I show it to, say, someone else who is learning programming, they will see the same beauty in it that I do. I think that I will spend more time with this person to become closer friends with him.

> Is it normal that I don't have close friends and that I'm solitary?

This is quite a common narrative. But it is also very easy for it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't believe that it is easy to make friends, it will be harder to make friends. People are social creatures. Smile, laugh, enjoy yourself, and celebrate the people around you; and you will have friends.

> Am I missing out on anything?

Probably, but such is the narrative of life. If you're concerned about unknown unknowns, then do more scary things. If you like programming and art, try skateboarding or maybe join the debate team and do some public speaking. Just do different stuff. You don't have to abandon the things you like, but you have to make time and space to push yourself into places that are uncomfortable.

> What hobbies do you advise me to adopt that I can do in a group, with camaraderie?

Anything with a group of individuals who are working together. Team sports, band, some ROTC, debate, school newspaper, . I would also caution against the impulse to be "better" than everyone else. Camaraderie comes from working together as a team, not from being better than your teammates. There is enough available success in the world to go around. There's no need to step on people to get there.

> Will college be the same or different than high school?

Both. People will still come in all flavors. The amplitudes of their behaviors will likely be different than what you're used to, but the same behaviors will be there.

> Can I have the same kind of youthful fun when I'm an adult?

Depends on how you define "youthful fun" and "adult". The available options of a 70 year old person are much more physically limited than a 17 year old person. And there is some continuous curve that links those two points. But at 70, you've had a lifetime to accumulate wealth (and maybe some time to blow it too), so the 17 year old may be more financially limited than the 70 year old. Do what you can with what you have.

Thank you for your advice. In the past, I didn’t care about joining other clubs and only cared about my programming hobby. Now, I think that I should be more well-rounded and pick up other activities, especially ones in which I am more likely to find companions. I will find an interesting club to join.

w.r.t being better than others - I go to a school with a strong academic culture. In absolutely no way do people put each other down, not at all, but I feel like there is an underlying motivation to have good ECs to make oneself attractive to colleges. In particular, you mentioned the debate team, which, at least at my school, seems to me like a highly competitive club that boosts college applications. I feel extremely cynical about the culture of people padding college applications, so I had decided previously to ignore clubs and only pursue my passion of programming to be “true to myself.” However, now I feel a desire to join a club out of genuine pursuit of happiness (as opposed to boosting an application). I hope that I will find a club with a passionate and genuine culture, without competitive people.

Before, my mother had told me that I should have activities outside school that I could show for. Part of it was for colleges, as I would have a hard time competing with others if I didn’t do much outside school. However, my mother also said that part of it was being a fuller person. I used to feel frustrated because I felt like she wanted me to do stuff just for college, a motivation that I felt was “phony,” but now I see what she meant about being more active in general.

In my experience, life has become more fun and carefree since I've become an adult, not vice versa. It's ironic, as youd expect adult life to be laden with more responsibity and "seriousness" but the truth is that work is easier than school (as long as you're not married with children), and you have financial freedom to pursue your interests. Your adult life can be what you make it. You're not stuck with the same social group so you're free to associate with who you want. I wouldn't go back to high school or even college if I had the chance.

> Is it normal that I don't have close friends and that I'm solitary? Am I missing out on anything?

Given your interest in type theory, it's definitely normal for you to be solitary. Most mathematicians are. A lot of writers, too, I imagine.

But you are missing out on something, as a lot of us "programmer-types" are, which is a healthy social life. We can connect with others online, but I think we'd be fooling ourselves if we thought that being social online can replace being social IRL.

My recommendation is that you put some work into making a good friend with similar interests to your own. There's got to be someone at your school who is also interested in programming. Find that/those person/s and befriend them. You'll be glad you did.

There are some people in my school who program, but they aren’t interested in type theory. Nevertheless, I think that I would be closer with them if I could just see them more often in terms of class schedules. I will find time to be with them more often.

How's it coming? Have you spent any time with any fellow (aspiring) hackers yet? :)

I hated high school (Dutch), with a passion. I felt restricted in what we were learning (set curriculum, almost no extracurricular possibilities), I disliked most people and it was posh (I'm not) and therefore had a bit of an overconfident air.

I had fun: I cheated, I skipped classes, my motto was "minimum effort, maximum freedom." I went out a lot in Amsterdam in order to get my social fix and a read on what it means to be social (long story short: if you don't like going out that much, go to places with more interesting music -- jazz, classical, opera, finger style guitar etc.)

For me the fix was obvious: travel in Europe and make friends. It was obvious because I had a huge hunger for doing whatever I wanted as opposed to other people dictating it to me (e.g. set curriculum in high school).

In the end those friendships were short-lived, all of them. But those friendship did give me the validation of that I mattered (and the insight that everyone matters really). When I look at Japanese high school animes, I think of the time where I felt lost in other countries, and gained some friends who showed me their world in all their wonderful idiosincratic ways.

I'm not saying you should travel. I hope that my story just gives some inspiration.

In your youth you can follow your desire, the older you get, the more you'll have to follow responsibilities.

Same here, hated highschool, flunked, skipped more classes that I can remember, ended up living abroad for a year in order to fix myself.

I also hated high school with passion. I loved it at the university though. That is also where I found the little circle of my closest friends - after 20 years we are still close. I am not sure there is any lesson to be learned for the original poster except maybe... do not over-think it. Things change quickly at that age and a year from now your life might be pleasantly different without doing anything special to achieve that (not that I am advising against mixing it up a little if you feel like it).

As other people will probably tell you, I hated HS. For technical people it seems to be a common thread: stories of the type "I was miserable until I went to Uni, when I found out there's other people who like talking about the Linux kernel" are everywhere. So I will risk it and say "yes, it's normal to be solitary in HS if you're a technical person, but College is often better".

As far as hobbies go, it's more about you than about the hobby. I had a drawing group where we would gather at coffee shops and talk and draw for a couple hours. Sports are also surprisingly entertaining once you do them because you feel like it rather than because someone tells you to. I made lots of friends through martial arts.

>when I found out there's other people who like talking about the Linux kernel

I went to an engineering school with a sizable CS/ECE program but I never found people like this.

My advice to OP is - go to a university that does have people like this.

"My advice to OP is - go to a university that does have people like this."

Sorry, but that's an unactionable advice. You really can't tell what your classmates interests will be before the uni starts generally.

Go to the best college you can is a better one.

Generally speaking it correlates well with selectivity and ranking.

I know hindsight is 20/20 and it's easier said than done, but probably the best way to build social skills is to take up a group sport like football/basketball/frisbee/rock climbing etc. Or join a dance team/music band after a few lessons. Or take up volunteering. Any physical activity in which you're part of a team. This is very important, try to succeed in this as seriously as you study type theory because people skills are important for whichever career/life path you choose.

It bears saying, despite being obvious: You can't have all the experiences the world has to offer. And the ones that are in media are both constructs of a prior generation - media is selling the aspirations of the experience - and inevitably romanticized, with clearly defined characters, conflicts and firm resolutions. Most real experiences feel ordinary in the moment, with lots of room to ignore, withdraw, disengage, or disbelieve. Even violence can feel quite ordinary. I can assure you that most of your classmates are not feeling their experience as anything but another weekday.

So it's not the experience itself, it's what you get out of it as years tick by, and perspective can help. Real stories are subtle, with a lot of ways to retell them differently.

"Carefree" high school life is not innocuous - or rather, like a toddler who breaks their toys, it's innocuous right up until it isn't, and the friendships are only lasting in some cases. As a lifelong thing, what will help the most is bringing a balanced skillset and mindset to the scenarios you find yourself in. But the skills and attitudes you get from full engagement in high school life are also some of the most common ones you will encounter among people of your generation, and they are relatively undirected. It can feel good in the moment without doing anything to help you down the line, because doing the most common thing puts you up against a lot of competition.

So, "normal" can just mean setting yourself up for a completely different set of regrets. It's something that young people cling to desperately in their adolescent years by way of setting a baseline, but there are a lot of good reasons to grow away from it and focus on life more pragmatically as an unending series of opportunities and threats.

College life is more illustrative of the different paths you could take, because there's more specialization, more extremes of behavior. Some college kids break down moments after getting there because they discover they are, in fact, extremely underprepared for life away from their parents. Others can really thrive and define themselves.

Everyone's life is different, man. There is no benchmark that you need to compare against. Most of my good friends are people I've known for 15 years who I met in high school. Many people I know kept few or no friends from high school. Some of those people have great friends from college instead, while others have few or no friends at all. Some are happy, some aren't-- with or without the friends. I know two separate girls each with almost no friends who are both happy as a lark, and I know a few people with more friends than they can count who are quite depressed.

There isn't a rubric for life.

> I don't know how to make close friends.

Don't worry about this. If you can make acquaintances, you're on your way. Think of close friends as friend seeds that you've watered. I even have such people from years ago that I keep warm around this time of year. Whether you become close depends a bit on serendipity. Will you live near each other? Will you work in the same business? Will you have kids the same age?

So gather up friend seeds, it's pretty easy. Go for drinks with people, hang out, that sort of thing. You don't have to force yourself to spend a load of time with anyone. In fact it's impossible in some cases.

As for your interest in coding and math, you've already discovered you can make online friends. Maybe you'll see more people like you at uni, who knows. For the moment you at least have online people you can socialize with, and it's not like they're any less than real people.

Get into minor but not major trouble. Learn what it is like to bend or break the rules get caught and suffer consequences. Get that out of your system now if even an inkling of curiousity exists here.

Don’t get into major trouble or do very dumb things that could get people seriously injured or killed.

Just go to college and study what you like. Contrary to the popular belief, mathematics and computer science aren't solitary pursuits. You'll meet people who share your interests and ways of being.

Regarding making friends, I would like to share this paper with you: "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings" [0] See the appendix for a great set of questions/tasks to come closer to another person.

College for me was much better than High School.

[0]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014616729723400...

Look, everyone is different and so is his/her path.

While we have some ideals, e.g. as portrayed by pop-culture, it does not mean that you would even enjoy living this ideal. Your life will be what you desire it to be, if you are able to make your own decisions.

As someone that flip-flopped between solitary and social phases in his life (and not only marginally), my only advice would be: whatever you feel like, just try to enjoy it the best you can.

Life is incredibly short and it is all yours and you will be the ultimate judge.

Regarding friendships: Especially at your age, friendships can be very intense and meaningful, and yet so frail and meaningless in retrospect. Again, all that matters is how you perceive and enjoy it, and that's the point: deep down, everyone just wants to enjoy themselves. Try to enjoy yourself, and while doing that, don't hesitate to bond with people that support this feeling and ideally have similar interests. And take an open look at what they offer on alternative views and interests.

And don't sweat it, if most bonds are very shallow and superficial, these will always be the majority (through all your life), and that's OK. And things might change incredibly fast anyway, especially in high school.

Paul Graham wrote an essay on this exact question. I read it while in high school but only after years later aimlessly wandering through life did the words pierce my soul.

I'd say read this: http://paulgraham.com/hs.html

And really reflect on it deeply, aside from that just try to do things you won't regret not doing later.

Thanks for posting this, I was wondering today what advice I'd give my younger self. Reading this, it turns out I'm still the intended audience for a high school address :)

Socialize where you can. I say this as someone who is looking at putting together a wedding party and deciding on a best man. I had some good acquaintances in high school, then I had some good acquaintances in college, and then professionally. But no one that can really hit that "like a brother" spot that stuck through each major change. Beyond all the socializing and carefree stuff the one thing I wish is there was at least one person who I knew throughout all the big parts in my life.

Have fun, don't waste these years worrying about the future, you'll get plenty of time in the next 50/60 years to do that but you'll never get your youth back.

Is it normal that I don't have close friends and that I'm solitary?

Who cares what's normal, but your situation is quite common.

However I'd advise that you force your self to work on the social aspect and have relationships - friends, colleagues, enemies is all good as long as you invest some time in that. One good outcome is in high school you can have sex with your peers - other young people, something that is illegal in the USA to do when you become older.

this shits a run-on thought so be warned before you read it:

learn to skate, you'll have a quick mode of transport in urban/suburban areas, you get to meet some cool people, widens your music exposure. Chances are these skating kids have spare boards, ask if they can help you learn, most people are down to hang out a little after school and skate for a bit.

Seriously I was in a similar state, but skating helped me branch out to other groups of people, I ended up meeting cool people through it, and I now surf with one of the people I met through it. Plus whenever we are in SF i feel really comfortable street skating.

Be ready to fall, and thats part of the learning, and the balance acquisition. its a life long skill, but a gift that keeps on giving.

also don't take off the plastics that cover the ball bearings on the wheels, people say that they "help out" but it really trashes them, if anything get some Red Dragon Bearings and call it a day, they are super good besides ceramics. If you have the ability to get a board ($110 new) get something some Thomas Trucks, Enjoi Board, and some Spitfire wheels.

If you look at facebook, you see what people want other people to see. The pictures of good things,or beautiful places from travels, and so on, the only good stuff. The same with the anime.

This is not reality. Reality of friendship or anything in life like dating is good and bad combined. Sometimes is pain in the *ss to have a close friend or lover.

You probably want something that is perfect, and you idealize it from the distance. Friendship is not complicated, you just spend time with other people, not hard at all.

It is also a routine, you need to gain momentum, it will look hard to break you current routine(that is comfortable, what is called the "comfort zone"), but is not, write down an objective you want on paper and look it every day while doing a little every day to gain momentum.

How could I advice an stranger what hobbies should he adopt. I don't know you, your tastes, I do not know where you life, your country. This is your job.

in places like the US people is isolated by default, one way to improve is traveling to a country that is more social for a while like Spain, Argentina,or Brazil.

Youthful fun? Stop desiring what you don't have. I had fun when I was a kid but right now it is only memory. Only the present exist. And the past is not the future.

There are more important things in life than "fun", read "Man's Search for Meaning" of Victor Frankl.

You could have fun at any stage of your life, you don't need permission from others for that.

What usually happens is that what other people consider fun, is not fun for you and vice versa. I get pretty happy spending time in the Woods talking-discussing about philosophy with other people. Other people consider it boring.

PS:"How to make friends and influence people" is a good book to understand friendship, it is about others, not you.

By the way, this book has an old version, I think pre WWII or something, and later versions.

Pick the old one, it is the original. It was later "improved" by the author's descendants.

I am 39 yo and I am not close anymore to any of my HS friends. But I am very close to lot of my University friends. I don't think you need to worry about missing something irreplaceable for life.

Also, do not take other people's memories and nostalgic feelings at face value. These memories usually filter out the bad, boring, irremarkable stuff to make the past sound like an anime. Also, it is often compared to struggles they are facing in the present and wish they could escape.

All that said, I think you do should do something to not feel solitary. I am not so sure that friendships must develop naturally. Sure, they can't be forced, by I think they can (should?) be consciously pursued. That's my approach to keep my best friends close in my adulthood.

Keep an eye open for good people, people who are kind to others and that happen to have some common interests with you. And if the interest seem mutual, make an effort to hang out with those people.

For me, the bottom line: make an effort to be nice to nice people and nice things will happen

> Am I missing out on anything?

Only if you truly feel that you are missing out on something in particular-- something you can describe in unambiguous terms.

The answer to "am I missing out on something?" is always, 100% of the time, "yes", because of course no single person can experience every possible 'thing', and there are probably tons of experiences you haven't had that you're glad to have "missed out" on because they're undesirable.

if you know of some that you're really hoping to have before you move on, those are probably the only ones to even concern yourself with; but, even then, just know that it's really, really likely that they are things that are available/doable far beyond your HS years, and at the end of the day, may not have much to do with the fact that you're an HS student; you may find that they are things you'd just generally like to experience.

On a more personal note, having been out of HS for almost 13 years now, the culmination of my high school experience is basically a lot of relief that I screwed up, made strange decisions, joined in sometimes, missed out sometimes, got in a bit of trouble, helped some people, was hurtful to some others, and was generally just totally winging it, while still an HS student.

In college I eventually learned how to learn, and how to think. High school (for me) was the social version of that. I could have done much more, been more extroverted, etc, but those feelings dissipated way more quickly that I thought. A good example of this is the whole dating scene. I met my husband when we were 16 and 17 years old, and I "missed out" on casual dating for most of HS and all of college+. There were times I thought of this as a regret, but it just took me a while to, for lack of a better description, know what I'm about and what I want out of life; those regrets have been re-contextualized as "I am so glad I never had to do that."

Firstly, it's difficult to get perspective on something when you're in the thick of it. You may have made better friendships than you realise and these things will become clearer with time.

Secondly, it sounds like you've lived yr teens a little differently to others, but there's no right way of doing it, and you'll be richer for some of the choices you've made and poorer for others, that's part of life. Live without regrets. It's a cliche but also a truism that you can't change the past.

Finally, the great thing you've done is yr reflecting upon the life you're leading. The trick now is to actually act upon the changes you want to make and commit to them. If you can work this loop really effectively (do, reflect, improve) while also just being able to relax a bit and find pleasure in where you are right now then I think this is one of the keys to a happy, fulfilled life.

Good luck!

I would not trust an online group to form an opinion what is 'normal' and what is not. An online group is formed of people who were incentivized to join that discussion because it appealed to their personality. There are probably at least 500 million english speakers on the internet. This means there can be subgroups for all sorts of fringe things that have thousands of members, yet present a tiny fraction of the population. Most of all, the groups you visit have people who have same types of personalities as you. Hence, you don't know whether the opinions you get are an overall average, or totally uncommon.

What I mean by this - it's great you are wondering how to to live your life so it' fullfilling - but an online group is not necessarily the best place to gauge the quality of your life in the general context as there is no single optimum for human experience as people are very different. And some people learn to cherish the things that make their life painfull. And some people have toxic personalities yet are terribly good at persuading others.

Social proof is an immensly powerfull force yet it is easily manufactured in this day an age.

That said, many have adviced trying some group sport and I think that's a great advice. You don't need to like it, and can the stop the experience, but there is no way to know except by trying.

It's great you are partaking in art. This already gives you a wider context than just your technical interests.

While wondering how to live your life, you might enjoy reading biographies of technical people. I would warmly recommend Walter Isaacsons magnificient books- Innovators, Leonardo da Vinci, Jobs, Einstein and Benjamin Franklins biographies give a vivid and human description how other technical people with artistic qualities lived their life.

You don't know what your life will be like, and you are a being of your own, but often peoples lives have more things in common than not - even across centuries.

> Is it normal that I don't have close friends and that I'm solitary? Am I missing out on anything?

Not really. Not everybody needs to or wants to have a huge circle of friends. And let's face it, it's impossible to have a huge circle of close friends. You wouldn't be able to maintain the friendships AND your studies, hobbies, etc.

> What hobbies do you advise me to adopt that I can do in a group, with camaraderie?

Strength training, hiking, biking, running, dancing, watching anime/drama/movies in a group -- so many to choose from. Just try out whatever interests you. You'll end up meeting lifelong friends just doing that.

And trust me, high school is a not a big deal. It's a very small chunk of your life compared to what's ahead. And what's ahead is much much better.

Just keep making friends. Keep it a priority and learn to get to know people. Don't stress too much if it doesn't feel like it's working. If you keep this as a goal and make the effort it will happen. I don't think you are alone in this. Western societies are getting more and more isolated. Finding people you connect with is not easy.

I don't keep in contact with any of my high school friends now. I've made new ones as an adult. I've changed so much since high school so has everyone I was friends with so we just don't have that much in common any more. So I wouldn't stress to much that you're missing out on high school connections.

You will need friends in life but you'll find a way to make them.

Every close friendship I've ever made has been based on a mutual understanding that both of us are flawed.

You will only continue to cultivate superficial friendships if you keep people out of your interior world, and are unwilling to be there for others to open up to you.

With most things in life, you get out what you put in. I remembered it was awkward for me, but I made efforts to hang out with friends. A lot of my friends didn't have the same interest as me at first, but there's always something in common that we share, may it be sports or food or movies or just plain hanging out. As you already know, friendship needs cultivating. Just like building a relationship. So, go have fun! Keep an open mind and hang out with people, you'll learn interesting things about them and build a long lasting friendship bond.

I remember watching an anime called Erased! that elicited similar feelings for me, but it was centered around elementary/secondary school. I'm not sure I can answer your question, I wasn't that close with my highschool class. But two things I can say are: be your genuine self, and take a genuine interest in others.

To say anything more specific would really just be me trying to give advice to my past self, instead of trying to give you advice. Someone you know well may have more personal insights.

Random musings:

There are less rules than you might think, but you are right that developing close friendships takes time.

On the other hand college can be a nice ground zero, where you don't need to break into some weird existing cliques where everybody already has shared language based on years of in-jokes.

But my friendsip building wad reasonably low-effort, but over long time with consistency :-)

I went to bible-study and enjoyed the more personal setting than the "50 people sing hymn together in a church youth-meeting". I am order of magnitude less religious than I was back then, but I still remember the time fondly and keep in touch with some of the people I met there :)

I liked to go swimming with few friends that found the idea "swim from one end of 50m pool to the other for an hour" relaxing. Every 300m we stop at the end of the pool and chat. Then we swim again.

I had group of ~4 friends I played board-games together. Or we organized lan-parties from time-to time. 3 of us then went for a same programme at the same college and that helped me quite a bit when acomodating in college.

I joined for a few longer (several days) hikes with few people from my class. I don't keep in touch as much with them, but knowing there are few people I literally walked like hundred miles along-side is nice :-)

I learned a lot just by walking home with a friend of mine and talking Java design patterns and algorithms for path-finding through mazes. We did few projects together, and to this day (10y after we left hs) we still make point of getting a few beers together or going for Puzzlehunt every few months.

Close-ness is a difficult concept. I.e. with the friend I talked about I wouldn't call him at 3 AM if I am depressed. I think only one I would wake up like this might be my wife :) Over a beer we probably would discuss if I am burned-out at work or simmilar.

I might have few friends I would talk about my kids and raising them and the usual life-stuff. Former colleagues that I grew to know over hundred shared lunches and cofe breaks and later on beers in pubs, occasional hike or going bouldering.

I might have maybe one friend I might talk about more intimate stuff, like if I had problems in marriage. We have known each other for around 20 years and we literally met in middle-school.

I do wish you luck!

First, I'd like to say that you're doing fine, no worries.

Second, I'd say go out and join a team or two. This is where you will find deeper connections with other people.

It could be a sports team, a work team, a User Group[0] or anything where you have to cooperatively participate with others based purely on shared interests and goals. Just be sure to pick something you enjoy and to participate fully.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Users%27_group

I wanted to make this submission longer to better convey how I feel, but I had to cut it down to 2000 characters (including the title apparently). Therefore, it may come across as terse and abrupt.

You can get around that by adding more text in later via the 'edit' link, which is there for 2 hours after you post.

But I don't think what you wrote sounds terse or abrupt! I hope you get some value out of the replies.

The less you worry about what you're missing out on the happier you'll be. Focus on what you can and want to do.

TV and anime makes carefree socializing in high school look better than it is.

Colleee is usually a lot better time for socializing than high school, espicially if you're ambitious and nerdy.

Find other ambitious nerdy people that share the things you're excuted about. This will probably be much easier to do in high school.

I hated high school. Spent all of my time alone. Flunked. Repeated the tenth grade. Flunked again and dropped out. 5 years later, got e GED and went to a state school. Found a passion for math and CS. Got good grades for two years and transferred to Stanford. Found my tribe and discovered a career that I love.

High school was an oppressive environment.

Didn't attend US highschool, but from the movies and TV shows I've seen about it, coolness and popularity seem to be commonly put on a pedestal, I can only say it's just 3 years of your probable 70+ years' life, so what's cool and popular for kids in high school maybe isn't as important after it.

> I don't know how to make close friends.

In my experience, it's much easier to do with people you have something in common. I didn't even know the names of most of my classmates in high school.

> Will college be the same or different than high school?

The best thing about college was the fact that other people stopped feeling like a bunch of scripted NPCs.

Here's a nice advice page done by founder of Stripe - https://patrickcollison.com/advice

You'll be missing out on teenager life as you worry about teenager life, so don't worry about it and just do what you want to do.

Make sure to never listen to guidance counselors. They’re idiots who push you in the wrong direction.

1. Forget about what's "normal". Instead, ask yourself: "Is this going to contribute to my broader goals in life?" Having close friends in high school may offer valuable experiences in social dynamics and managing relationships, but chances are you won't remain friends with most of those people after high school, and that's ok.

2. Definitely research colleges thoroughly and apply to them, but realize that you don't have to go to college. And certainly not right out of high school. In some disciplines, such as web software engineering, those 4 years spent working with real clients could be more valuable for your career than spending lots of money on a Computer Science degree.

3. Leverage all the extra-curricular activities you can in order to gauge your interest in certain subjects. Obviously you can't register for everything, but pick, say 3 activities to focus on each semester and apply yourself to them. As life goes on, you'll have less and less carefree time to explore this stuff.

Study your body like you would a machine or a program or a puzzle. Understand how your muscles respond to stimuli. Figure out how your nerves transmit intensity. Discover what forces your body to move against your will. Given your submersion in the hormonal hilarity that is puberty, you're going to spend a lot of time on autopilot, so step back and observe your body being commanded by primal forces.

Once you build this map, you can begin to monitor and track how external factors drive you. Memes, TV, movies, music, conversation... all signals designed to persuade and hijack your behavior. Spending time here will give you much needed clarity of self and begin laying the foundation of empathy for others.

Friends appear once you have this map as you will have unintentionally filtered out those who will exploit the unexplored regions of you.

Good luck.

Birds of a feather flock together. In my experience it's pretty hard to not stumble with people that clicks with you, wherever you go. Take those chances to make friends.

High School is pretty much useless, don't rely on teachers to teach you anything.

Like you said, you can't force friendship, your best bet is to make more casual friendships and then develop the ones that are a good match.

I recently began consciously developing my casual social skills (small talk). I make a point of smiling and greeting people at every opportunity.

Many of my coworkers are silent until spoken to, at which point they smile with delight and really open up to you.

Beyond that, I would say, clarify as best you can the type of friends you are looking for. What exactly do you mean by close friends? What kind of things would close friends do together, or do for each other? Figure out what that is, and then see if there are opportunities for doing those things in your existing relationships.

A friend once told me, years after the fact, that a favor I did for him was very meaningful to him. Nobody had done anything like that for him before, and it was instrumental to our lasting friendship.

tldr (1) social skills will improve with practice (2) to have a friend, be a friend

Best wishes

I've never regretted saying yes to an offer to socialise in a small group. It's easy to get lost at a party or a big event, but if you're one of four or five people sitting in a MacDonalds after class it's easier to talk and make friends. College will give you lots of opportunities to do things like that, and they'll be more useful than the massive social events if you're a little bit introverted.

My lessons learned from high school:

High school performance is not an indication of real life performance. I graduated class rank 380 out of 386 because my personal goal was to see just how close I could cut it without missing the mark. That means I was at that time a risk seeking personality. I also hated high school, because my high school is one of the top high schools in the country and is certainly not a reflection of reality. I was happier isolating myself from the competition politics parents imposed on their children and I achieved that isolation with far too great of success. I still got into college just fine and now I make more money than many of my teenage childrens' friends' parents. This is solely because I pursue my personal interests far more aggressively than most people.

Many years ago when I was at Travelocity I was a young senior developer. Somebody I graduated high school with (top ten class rank) came in as a junior vice president. Her education and life goals were centered around management, but she had no product or technical goals. She left the company before I did and is doing very well. It took me later in life to discover my personal goals and I have been less successful as a result. I suspect there is greater demand for me in the marketplace and I likely have greater job security and her though.

You are still a child. Your brain has not fully formed and so you lack the observational and emotional stability that comes with being an adult. That said remain calm and don't anything too seriously. Focus on learning all things from academics, inter-personal relationships, technical things, human behavior, and so forth. Don't confuse who you are with who you want to be. Be yourself and do it well.

Use your time in high school to prepare the personal behaviors that will carry you through the rest of life. Consider things like self-reflection, work ethic, a lust for learning, written communications, and so forth. Discover your interests and personal passions and have the courage to share your interests with others.

Set personal goals. Its ok if you don't achieve your personal goals at that age, because your interests are subject to change. Goals give you something to work towards and what is important is that you are working towards something intentional with great focus. If you do quit your goal prematurely do so deliberately with a great reason that you can speak to out loud.

You never get your time back. Don't waste your time on frivolous things. Any activity that contributes to some degree of self-improvement, listening/communication skills, or social behavior is important.

Fun is what you make of things. It is a matter of perspective. Beware of people trying to define this for you.

To make lasting friends you have to hang out repeatedly with a group of people. Then you'll naturally hang out more with some people in a group, and suddenly you'll realize you're friends.

Also friendships bloody well can be forced (or nudged, anyway). All friendships start between two people who aren't exactly friends.

"Hey, do you want to X later?" "Yeah sure"

Then you try X, and if you enjoy X, you do Y together later, and eventually you're friends. Whereas if you don't, you drift off and meet other people.

As far as I can tell, (forming) friendship is just:

1. Repeat interaction

2. With people you like

The group helps make it natural. But friendships also form when one person is outgoing enough to say "hey wanna hangout?"

Maybe you've done that and it didn't work. I was just skeptical when I read the phrases "friendships have to develop naturally" and "I have never made a close, loyal friendship". Empirically, you have no evidence of how friendships have to form - you've never formed one :) I find the "natural" language is often an excuse used by people to avoid taking the outgoing actions necessary to nudge a relationship forward. (This applies to dating relationships too - someone always takes iniative of some sort)

Also if people aren't warming to you, then dressing well and being fit help. And if you're a man, being strong helps immensely. This might sound silly and superficial but it's how things work. People respond more warmly to people they find attractive and/or not embarrasing to be with (within genders too). And when people are warm to you, you act more warmly to them. This catalyzes friendships. Simple as that. This could partly explain why you can talk but it leads nowhere.

You don't need to go too deep into style. Just....make sure your clothes fit you. Poor fitting clothes affects many an introverted high schooler.

Anyway, no it's not normal to have no friends. Introverts generally end up with some close friends they interact with one on one. This is normal and healthy and allows for a lot of solitude. But being totally alone isnt so good. And some of the best friendships form in high school/college, so it's good to work on the skill now.

(The group advice is good advice to finding these individual friendships. A loose group lets you sift through and find closer friends)

Also, since things aren't coming naturally, "how to win friends and influence people" is a really good guide to doing just that. People who are good with people intuitively do the stuff in the book.

Also, that's good insight on your part after watching the anime. I only had the same insight in third year college, I wish I had had it sooner. I do have close friends now, it's nice.

Btw, as far as afraid of ending high school goes: don't be. You're only 17. It's good to enjoy high school. But, it you start working on this an figure it out by 19....you're still really young! Most young people are sortint themselves out in one way or another. You're not "missing" anythint while you do that: you're just gettint yourself ready for life. Most nerds were bad at high school, have poor memories of it, and are fond of college instead. The carefree high school kids with fond memories were usually either popular or those who didn't go on to university.

That doesn't mean don't work at it. Do work at it. Just, the goal is to be able to make friends, at some point in the near future. If you miss the high school window, you should be fine as long as you're improving.

You may also like these Paul Graham essays:

http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

(Your high school problem may simply be that people at your high school aren't interested in your interests. See Paul's comments on his high school chess club. Note also that he weight lifted, and his social life improved after he became good at soccer and started a scandalous neespaper. Both are things that improve social status: http://www.paulgraham.com/gateway.html?viewfullsite=1)

> Also if people aren't warming to you, then dressing well and being fit help

I have been way over-valuing this before. While the effect might not be 0, I think it is a much worse problem for dating and not so much just making friends. Even then it is surprising how far a bit of confidence will get you.

Don't stress about things you can't change.

....you can very easily change how you dress. I wore ill fitting pants for years. Now my pants fit.

I'm not high fashion or anything; I wear jeans and T shirts. But they fit. This is pretty simple to fix.

It's not a huge deal for making friends, but it isn't zero.

This may not be OP's problem, and it may not have been your problem, but a lot of introverted men are awful dressers and it adds friction to hanging around with them.

For some of us, being solitary is the way it is. A range of things is normal, including being fairly solitary :) I've never really had lots of close friends either, but I've also found that there are upsides to this - it did, after all, allow me to move countries without many complications, for example. I did this in my mid-30's. I happen to move to a more introverted country than the US - being somewhat solitary definitely helped with this.

I fully suggest things like joining groups if you have them in your area. I understand that not everywhere has these or not in your interest. Join groups even if you think everyone else will be your grandparent's age! You never know who you might find. If you can't join any groups, try to do something regularly. Do you have a local coffee shop or even a local McDonalds? Go there once a week, fairly regularly, and drink coffee while you sketch. It is a great way to meet people (I took a vacation to Amsterdam where I sketched in coffee shops and other public places - it was wonderful). Plus, art gives me something to talk about :)

Experience as much as reasonably possible, especially while you are young. The only other real group hobby I have is tabletop gaming - I go to a friends house when possible to play overly complicated board games. I've thought about volunteer work, in part to improve my language skills.

Casual friendships are gold. While it is hard to find close friends - casual stuff is easier. The grand thing about these friendships is that when put together, they tend to equal a full friendship. One person might be good for getting your mind off things while the other might like to listen to some people's problems from time to time. I tend to have very few close friendships. Heck, I have only a few casual ones as well, but i'm ok with that. I'm not sure if I'm missing out on things, but I stopped caring.

College will be partially the same and partially different than high school. I have enjoyed being an adult much more than I did being a teenager. I'm now 40 and can honestly say I enjoy life much more now. You can have the same kind of youthful fun when you are an adult. What you find fun might (and probably will) change. It is normal to be afraid of ending high school, by the way. Most of us get at least a bit nervous before life changes when things seem a bit unknown.

One thing that might help your perspective is learning how to frame things in life. For example, before I moved to Norway after marrying the spouse (who is Norwegian), I figured that if things went badly and I wound up back in the US... I'd at least have a good story to tell and a mound of life experience that wouldn't have happened otherwise. I figured the story itself would make me more interesting - at least to my standards. This sort of attitude makes difficult times ever-so-slightly easier and the fear of the upcoming changes much easier. :)

And this might not have been the best writing, but that's all I'm doing for now :)

[apologies, wall of text follows]

A number of other people have suggested sports. I wish I had discovered Judo and Brazilian Jujitsu younger, but I was a competitive fencer and boxed in university. All sports give you a pool of people to have shared experiences with (maybe a bit artificial) whether they are team sports or individual sports.

The other element of these kind of 'instant friend' activities is that you can find a kind of 'placeholder' group of people to hang out with who may be able to introduce you to other people you are more likely to click with. I made some good friends from groups of people that I largely had nothing in common with but was hanging out with because of some girl (for example) - but you might wind up meeting way more interesting people on the periphery of a group you don't really 100% click with.

My friends in high school were generally 'shared interest' nerd friends (mostly Dungeons and Dragons as a core nerdy interest).

It's possible to make friends doing pretty much whatever - a lot of friends I had in university were my peers in CS and other subjects. We had to hang around in labs and classes together, though (and having a 4th year "honours" program in CS where we did 100% CS and all had on-campus shared offices was really good for that). So it's just as possible that you could wind up walking in, doing your work, and walking out. Cultivating some projects and working with a group might really help with that. A lot of undergraduates are considered disposable randos who are just interested in getting a qualification as quick as possible while accumulating as little extra knowledge as possible, but if you're interested in type theory, maybe you should be trying to work with a research group in something you like. Ideally go for a healthy research group that's actually at the place you want to go, not something that exactly fits your supposed interested right now (which will likely change). So if they have a big healthy machine learning group that welcomes undergraduate research interns vs one cranky weirdo doing type theory, do the former (that's better both socially and, likely, as research prep if that's the direction you want to go).

Do try to make sure that you're not assuming activities are asocial when they aren't, too. Maybe people are getting coffee after art class?

It's very hard to force the issue - I think people are more and more preoccupied with their phones and previous social connections via social media than they are interested in meeting new people. I suggest cultivating a lot of interests (including a wide variety of things), behaving yourself well, keeping an open mind and seeing what happens.

Of course, maybe you're just solitary by nature. But don't assume stuff. I substantially reinvented myself in university and essentially declared myself an extrovert after having been very introverted in HS. Despite some awkward moments from this forced transition (yes, someone trying to put on an extrovert skin can be about as dreadful as you might imagine) this was a very good idea long-term.

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