Not looking forward to summer

LegacyUser

Hi everyone. This is something that's been on my mind for a while on and off, but when it's on my mind I get really sad and stressed, so I thought I'd get it off my chest. Sorry if it's a bit long.

I'm a guy finishing up my second year of my degree. I'm lucky enough to be going on Erasmus next year, which I'm really looking forward to. The problem is that my friend group at the moment comprises almost exclusively of people I've met in my university who are here on Erasmus...and, thus, are going home very soon. 4 of them are from the university I'm going to, which is great, but I'm in a relationship with another one of them who's not from there and won't be in his own country on the continent next year either, so it will be hard to visit as often as I could if he was.

Every time I think about summer I get very sad. I'm going to go from having some of the best friends I've ever had in my life and a perfectly happy relationship to being quite lonely and, well, a long distance relationship (we're going to try it out). I know it's only for a while because once I go on Erasmus I'll have a lot to do and some of my friends will be there with me, and even some of my friends in my course, but summer is so daunting.

I mean, I know I just mentioned friends in my course - I'm not a loner at all. It's just that I don't always see people outside of college, no matter how well I get on with them during classes, and it's not that we aren't good friends at all...just, I don't know. I also have friends around where I live and I love them to pieces, but a lot of them are in relationships now and so aren't around as much. I do plan to see them as much as I can (especially since I'll be away soon) but the reason I haven't seen a lot of my other friends for a while is that we sort of have different hangouts and groups in a way, and also the fact that I want to see my foreign friends as much as I can before they leave.

I'm applying for jobs, which would be ideal for occupying my time, but I'm not having any success so far so I'm not going to rely on that. I plan to go to the gym too, something I wanted to do this semester but didn't have a lot of time for, and I aim to do something fun with friends at least every 4 days...but that obviously leaves a lot of time unfilled. I plan to read a few books too which should be enjoyable, but just sometimes lately I find it hard to sleep and hard to stay asleep when I imagine how sad I'll feel in summer.

Even the idea of doing 'new' things, while appealing and definitely something I'll try, just feels so hollow because I know I'd rather be with my friends. I don't think I've ever gotten on so well with an entire group of people and we all have the same sense of humour and that kind of thing. I'm just going to miss them all so much. Has anyone else ever had a situation like this? Any ideas on how I could distract myself, even by preparing for Erasmus, that kind of thing?

Thank you if you managed to read all of that!

Tokyo

If they are that good of friends to you, and that important to you, then that doesn't simply disappear once they leave for your home country. You say that four of them will be in the university that you will be attending on erasmus next year - that's a HUGE advantage over everyone else who will be going there and spending the first month trying to form a social circle of their own - you will have four close friends waiting for you.

I'm not trying to put down how you feel because obviously these changes will affect you, but I think in this case you really are looking at it from the glass-half-empty point of view. The summer is only 12 weeks long, which is nothing in the greater scheme of things. The steps you are taking regarding work, gym, reading, friends, etc are excellent, not to mention the time you'll probably spend skyping your friends and partner, if you follow through on even half of that I think that the 12 weeks will fly by.

iusedtoknow

If you can't get work, have you thought about volunteering? Even just one or two days a week could make the world of difference.

As for erasmus, a similar thing happened to me. I met my (now wife) the last two weeks of her erasmus - the next semester I was due to go to Italy for 3 months for an exchange - in between there was a summer. It was pretty weird to go from starting a relationship and having a fairly wide group of friends to just working my hiney off to prepare for erasmus and somehow go to Barcelona to see my gf. I was lucky, that I had a job (that I worked at through college) but I still felt lonely in the summer as all I did was work.

When I got back to college the next january, everything had changed. A lot of my mates were on the full erasmus. I basically had to start again with friends. A lot of the people I befriended with are still my friends today, even though we've all moved countries and continents.

I think you need to look past the summer, and to the new opportunities you'll have in September to experience a new country/city. In the mean time, read a lot about where you're going, and what you want to do and accomplish there, read for yourself, volunteer if you can - the time will fly.