College will teach you a lot—how to write a paper overnight fueled by nothing but espresso and dread, how to function on three hours of sleep, and how to pretend you’re not spiraling during office hours. But perhaps one of the most sobering lessons isn’t found in a syllabus. It’s the lesson of people—of friends, almost-friends, the ones who drift away quietly, and the ones who leave you reeling. It’s the realization that not everyone who walks into your life is meant to stay.
Let’s start with the ones who knew you before all this.
High school friends. The ones who saw you in braces, bad haircuts, and your heavy Snapchat filter phase. There’s something about them that feels irreplaceable—because they knew you before you even really knew yourself. You promise to stay close, promise to call. And at first, you do. But then they meet new people. So do you. Texts slow. You forget to respond. They don’t ask about your major anymore. You stop tagging each other in memes.
You don’t even fight. You just stop trying.
Sometimes, you reconnect over break. And for a moment, it’s like nothing changed.
But then you realize everything did.
And that hurts more than any screaming match ever could.
College friends come in waves.
There’s the random girl you trauma-bond with during orientation over a dead phone and no charger.
The guy from your core class who you eat lunch with for three weeks straight before he ghosts you for Greek life.
The group chat friends who always say “we should hang out sometime” and never do.
Some people are meant to be lessons.
Some are just filler characters in your coming-of-age story.
But occasionally—rarely—you meet someone and it clicks. Not in a loud, firework way. In the quiet way. The “I can show up to your apartment in tears and you’ll know exactly what to say” way. The “you feel like home even when everything else is falling apart” way.
Those people are rare. Hold them tight. Let them see the messy parts of you. Let them in.
And still, even they might not stay.
Sometimes the people you thought would stand beside you at graduation are the ones who never text back after sophomore year.
Sometimes the ones you would’ve taken a bullet for are the ones who whisper behind your back.
Sometimes the ones you cried to about your ex are the ones sleeping with him.
And sometimes—it’s not just them.
It’s a whole group of people.
People who knew. People who hugged you, reposted your birthday stories, said “you deserve the world,” and still chose to say nothing.
They watched you believe in something that had already broken.
Watched you fight for someone who wasn’t fighting for you.
Watched you post like you were happy while knowing the truth would wreck you.
And they let you walk right into the wreckage.
They watched you post photos, make TikToks, talk about him like he was your future.
And all the while, they were protecting the girl betraying you.
Closing ranks around her.
Not you.
You ask one of your closest friends how they could let it happen—how they could look you in the eye and not say a word.
And they say:
“Oh well… she’s my friend too.”
As if that makes it okay.
As if friendship is Switzerland.
As if loyalty doesn’t come with lines you don’t cross.
But silence is a choice.
And in that moment, they made it.
Not for you. For her.
You don’t just lose the person who betrayed you.
You lose the people who stood by and watched.
They don’t warn you about that kind of heartbreak.
The kind where everyone else knew, and no one thought you deserved to.
The kind where the betrayal isn’t private—it’s public.
And you’re the last to know.
It’s not just losing a friend or an ex.
It’s losing your sense of reality.
It’s wondering how long they’ve been laughing without you.
It’s realizing you were the group’s inside joke.
The one with too much trust and not enough warning.
And if you thought cliques ended with high school graduation, I hate to break it to you—they didn’t.
College cliques are just the same dynamics in different clothes.
It’s the group of friends who go to every frat party together and never invite you, even when you’re standing right there.
It’s the student org with the inside jokes you’re never quite in on.
It’s the girls in your major who grew up together and make you feel like a guest in every group project.
It’s everyone in your major getting ready to take a picture and someone handing you the camera because why would I want to be in the picture?
You think you’ve outgrown the lunch table politics—but somehow, you’re still watching from the edges.
Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes it’s not.
And it can make you feel like you’re back in high school all over again—only now, you’re older and lonelier and trying to act like it doesn’t bother you.
But it does.
I wish someone had told me that losing friends isn’t always about betrayal.
But sometimes, it is.
Sometimes it’s calculated. Sometimes it’s cruel.
Sometimes it’s smiling to your face and sleeping with your partner behind your back.
Sometimes it’s choosing not to tell you because it was easier to protect the liar than sit with your heartbreak.
Still—most times—it’s just growing pains. You evolve. They evolve. And your orbits no longer align.
But it’s okay to mourn the people you lose—even if it was slow, even if it wasn’t dramatic.
It’s okay to remember them fondly and still feel hurt.
It’s okay to wonder if you were the bad friend. Maybe sometimes you were.
College is a constant shedding and reshaping of identity.
Of learning who you are when you’re away from home, when no one is watching, when it’s 2 a.m. and you’re crying on the floor because your best friend just became a stranger.
But that heartbreak?
It makes space.
Space for better people. Kinder people. People who don’t make you question your worth.
Friendship in college isn’t always forever.
But the right ones—the real ones—they’ll feel like it. Even if they show up late. Even if they don’t look like who you expected.
Keep your heart open, but protect your peace.
And remember:
You’re not too much.
You were just too much for the wrong person.
Or the wrong crowd.
Let them go.
You’ll be okay.
You always were.
Confessions of a Hot Mess continues next week with “Guide to College (4/6): You’re Not Behind—You’re Just Not on Their Timeline.”
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Confessions of a Hot Mess is the personal work of Emily Hess. The opinions expressed in this column, as well as those published in The Nevada Sagebrush, are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Sagebrush or its staff.
