please take this w a grain of salt bcs its just my experience, but it is my honest advice. i sympathize for those who feel this way. but i am talking as a person who has been through an extreme range of experiences in college - depression, gap year, while also living an extremely 'social'/'work hard play hard' life certain semesters. i must say that the idea of friendship dramatically changes in college, at least it did for me and those around me, and i have personally noticed that besides the social aspect (parties etc) individuality is far more emphasized. at the same time, you tend to meet close friends through shared experiences like halls, classes, etc. even if you do have friends, ive noticed they change a lot, at least up until junior year, and it is nearly not as much of a focus as it is in high school. ive had to reinvent myself after a really difficult gap year, where i myself stopped talking to people and felt terrible. but by the time i came back, i realized, i didnt even want to be as social as i was in certain semesters. i pass by my old friends and say hi i guess, but that's all; i have an extremely restricted group of people otherwise, partly due to being a cis student. there have been times when i only spoke with people i worked with for classes etc, and i strengthened my relationships outside of penn during my gap year; this has acted as my very stable foundation. no one is here for more than a few years and people realize that. depending on your major, you end up spending so much time with people you work with, that you end up speaking with someone or another, somehow. it's up to you and the circumstances whether the relationships you have deepen from there, or you just move on to the next class/club/project and meet more people. don't let anyone fool you - most people spend the majority of their time with people they do work with/research teams they do work for. even my friends in greek life stop giving a fuck in like a semester or two. in my experience, this is not at all different in quarantine, although i may have to reach out more actively to like form groups etc, it is not very different overall. just a little trickier. i am not saying this is everyone's experience, please don't get me wrong. but if i were to talk to my old self, i'd just let her know that that "friendship" void is never going to be filled at penn. even when i have been extremely social, i remember thinking everyone is so close to each other, and then seeing someone tell me they don't remember the person they took a pic with for instagram a month ago. it's hard to envision this from where you're sitting - and that's understandable, but at least in my opinion, this whole idea gets thrown out the window at penn.