So I’m in going to a college in Canada, but it’s been kind of strange and I only noticed recently. Nobody seems to speak or interact with me at all.

I’m not a very social person - like, really not social - I’ve never held down friends for any significant amount of time in my life and even when I did talk to people everyone was involved in more substantial conversations and relationships than me. Just to say I very well could be wrong and just missing everything going on. Anyway.

I’m familiar with the sort of social groups that happen in HS, but it’s been two years since was there. People don’t seem to do that anymore. Most people are separated and quiet in areas that have a consistent presence of people, like the cafeteria. A couple of times it was so quiet the air-conditioning was louder than the combined sound of like 20 or so students.

There’s a “pride center” - it’s one medium sized room with glass walls facing into the cafeteria. I dared myself to go in to check if there were people a few times. The most I’ve seen there was three, 2/4 times there was no one. Those two times I checked, when there was a few people they were in the corner, probably so they wouldn’t be seen from the outside by other students in the cafeteria. The other community rooms are similarly very empty.

Other than there (my city is a chudsville so I wasn’t expecting it to be anything) I attempted to find some clubs I could join. I used the QR code on a poster to get an invite to a discord server for boardgames, but nothing happens in the chat at all, aside from the one active member (so it seems) saying that they couldn’t arrive because they have to study.

In my actual classes the only people I can seem to talk to is my teachers, everyone else ignores me when I speak, that or I get actual stares, so I have learned to not speak. Attendance must be really bad, because I rarely ever see the same person more than once or twice. Almost all social interactions I’ve had with students don’t last more than three seconds and even then they feel one-sided and and make me unsure whether they actually even responded to me. It’s the end of my fifth week and somehow the cast hasn’t stopped changing.

One guy really creeps me out. I haven’t seen him in a while, though. He follows his girlfriend around like her shadow, making very clear that she’s his girlfriend with the PDA. When I first sat down beside her (two seats distance away on the same table, I made no attempt to interact with her) he came over and whispered to her “we’re going” and made her move to another table next to him. Another time I was I looking at her while she was making coffee with the instant coffee machine we have and he positioned himself in-between while holding her ass and staring at me. Another time he moved his bag in front of her to block my line of sight when I was telling her how to connect to the Wifi. I overheard a conversation between her and the teacher and apparently she lives with him and “is completely broke”. He’s never once spoken to me and neither has she. Both of them are semi-regulars (I remember seeing them 5 times)

Another person who I’ve seen more than two times was someone who entered a conversation I was having with the teacher about one of my online friends in Iran. I mentioned Israel, and he asked me if “I thought they were going to try to become the rulers of the world?” I said “no, they’re basically a US colony.” and he said a kind of repetition like “They’re going to try to rule the world? No?” and the conversation ended.

Also, there is a lot of students there, but only at certain times and places. I often find myself in areas of the campus that are completely empty (image above).