I recently had a conversation with a friend about college students in general and why social aspects like dating and friendships are so hard to come by. And even if students do obtain those advantages, they normally don’t last long.

Most people describe college as a place to “start all over again,” and this brings up an opportunity for people in high school to either develop their social skills or change their entire façade. Some might not even bother with it at all. The point is, students feel the need to be accepted in a college setting that has a high expectation of the kind of person everyone should be.

When we want to make friends in college, we have to put on our best face and show off mostly just the good parts of who we are because God forbid someone might actually like the bad parts as well. So, we put up a subtle veil of vanity and hope that others will take notice and that relationships will blossom.

Friendships don’t happen to us the way kids make friends, which is purely based on a common interest of just having fun and has nothing to do with personalities, appearances or otherwise. When we make friends, we might not admit or notice it, but we do take note of all those aspects. Why we talk to the people we like and don’t for the people we don’t like is purely artificial and mostly based on what the other person can bring to the table.

If you think about it and scroll through your contacts, you will notice the people who you’re never interested in talking to unless something important happens. We have been so conceited in associating ourselves with only the most interesting people that we allow other potentially awesome people not to be in our most intimate moments. I’ve been guilty of doing this, myself, but it’s the social hierarchy that we’ve been conformed to that makes us this way.

Dating represents the most conceited versions of our persona because it’s all about finding someone that matches our own liking. We have to like them enough to give them a chance to be a small part in our lives, and when things don’t feel the same anymore, we cast them aside because we’re not satisfied enough.

Everybody is selfish in their own way; even if you claim to be the nicest person out there, there’s en element of selfishness to you. When we look at a photo, we always look for ourselves first and often times don’t like the way we look. If everything from technology to civilization were taken away from us, we would still be the most conceited beings in the world because we have to learn to look out for No. 1.

Maybe there will be a time when there is nothing left to gain from social interactions and people can just live among each other for nothing else than to just be.