Worlds colliding…and I feel like an afterthought.

I am in my second year of college. This means, of course, that there are inevitable shifts in my friendships and other relationships. The people I used to talk to every day in high school are no longer my closest friends. I have roommates that I talk to all the time, and whom I love. However, I still keep in touch with high school friends whenever I’m home.

But lately, being at home has been weird because I feel completely out-of-touch with my old friends. They’ve all started playing a game online called “Valorant,” which is a first-person shooter game. They’re all low-key addicted, so they spend hours playing together every day. Naturally, this allows them to keep in touch in a way that I cannot. So coming home, they carry on with conversations that I can’t contribute to, or I feel out of the loop.

Recently, I decided to try the game in an effort to maintain our friendships. One of my roommates joined with me as moral support. It was perfect, and my high school friends were thrilled. However….

I hated it. First-person shooter is so not my vibe. It was stressful and confusing, and way too much for my poor laptop to efficiently handle. So I backed off a little, politely declining most invitations to play, while still trying to join in at least a few times a week. I wanted to keep in touch, but I don’t want to spend my afternoons stressed and confused. What’s more, I felt really guilty for being so bad at the game.

However my roommate took to the game immediately. Now she plays for hours every day with my friends from home. I can hear her screaming and yelling through my wall. She gets on almost immediately after coming home and plays until midnight or later. It’s apparently become her main method of self-care. She knows them all now and has exchanged contact info and social media. It’s so weird!! I feel like worlds are colliding.

Of course, it’s great that my old and new friends all get along. But…. I feel super left out. Like I said, I originally tried the game out in order to grow closer to my old friends. It didn’t work super well. And now, my roommate never spends time with me because she’s playing Valorant! Even when she does come over to talk with me, all she wants to talk about is her interactions my friends and their friends, whom I don’t even know. While I love talking about my friends, it’s difficult to keep hearing about all the fun times they keep having without me.

It’s uncomfortable that she knows what’s going on in their lives more than I do. I really do feel like I’m being dramatic, but it also feels like I’ve supplied my own replacement. I want to reach out more, but feel obtrusive and uninformed. What should I do??? I’m so nonconfrontational, it’s difficult to do anything. I know this is largely my fault for allowing us to fall out of touch, but I want to fix it.

Cheers,
Audrey