The Vast Spoils of Losing Your Mind

I'm sweating through both my clothes and my mind at the Laundromat on Nostrand and Willoughby (I'll have you know that I've already googled two questions and asked the laundromat attendant and a random woman folding clothes three questions about general washer/dryer operations) and all I can think about is the prescience of the impending change in season. The transition of the summer into the fall means two things for me. The first is that I am going to become a lame, shitty friend. The second is that I'm going to become more and more independent as fall wanes to winter in a way that is both spiritually enlightening and socially devastating.
The summer to fall transition means that school is beginning. Indeed, it already has and I've already acquainted myself with a few friends and, in some cases, I've already met quite a few friendly acquaintances. This has happened because I'm quite sociable, amiable (I try to be, rather), and I have a good time in most any situation. Furthermore, most of the people in my program seem to be of the same temperament. I've already had several memorable, indeed drunken, days with my peers and I've only been here for two weeks. I can't help but think about how different my experience would be so far had I not this affable, quasi-confident disposition–especially since it will be all for naught come the fall. During the summer I am as care-free as I can be, which isn't all that care-free, but it's a remarkable difference relative to my frame of mind during the school term. I am intimidated and overwhelmed during school–I normally feel like I'm trudging through each semester. This year I am, just as I presumed, at a cognitive disadvantage relative to my peers in my program (I know this already before having a full week of classes), so I know I'll need to work harder than the rest. I do this simply (yet it isn't simple) by sacrificing camaraderie almost entirely.
Based off of a myriad of previous experiences, this is what's going to happen: I'll get behind in school because I'm not very smart, people with whom I've become quite close will ask me to hang out, I'll want to hang out, I'll decline the invitation, and I'll spend half of the time studying while the other half will be spent feeling lonely, being obnoxious on Twitter and Snapchat, finding some form of pornography, and drinking beer. Once this happens, I'll feel narcissistically accomplished, as if I nobly overcame some form of impossible adversity (having fun), which it clearly is not. Shortly after, though, I'll establish a feeling of isolation that I will maintain is worth it, for even if I only worked half the time, it would still, one would hope, help me approach a more favorable position within the class.
Sometimes it will make me go moderately crazy; I'll talk to myself, laugh at myself, entertain myself, and vehemently vex myself for a lack of focus and intelligence, a surplus of sexual frustration (for the record, any amount of sexual frustration is to be considered a surplus), missing out on a good time (as shown on several Instagram photos or tweets), or general restlessness as a result of idling for too long while consuming endless amounts of caffeine. Sometimes I'll get so caught up in reassuring myself that abstaining from fun is the right choice that I'll begin to embrace my loneliness and sadness. Indeed, I think, oddly, there can be value in such things. When I'm sad I write better, I feel more passionately about most everything, I think a whole lot more, and I'm more grounded. It's like when Chris Conley was young, singing for Saves the Day at age 16 (or something absurd like that), writing:

"Every day seems the same to me

I sit around and think about how alone I feel

Then I wind up rather enjoying loneliness 

Because it's the comfort of being sad—sometimes it feels so right

And sometimes I'd like to be around no one for ten straight years"

To be sure, he does add after those lines, "...but I know this feeling can't bring me places, and I know I'm losing lots of ground," but in way that idea can almost strengthen the lines before it when one is feeling like that. 

Anyway, it's not as if I abstain completely from fun. I don't have excuses to drink in bars by myself after baseball season, so I'll agree to a minimal amount of outings. The only problem with that idea is the fact that I'll so desperately yearn for an amazing time that it's hard to have anything but incredibly high expectations. Fortunately for me I have fun doing most anything–even linear algebra or, more realistically, staring at the ceiling. Right now I'm sitting on a windowsill inside the laundromat, trading rain-soaked skin for sweat-soaked skin, and I am genuinely in love with this place; the diversity is astounding and brilliant, mischievous children are everywhere, and most everyone is spectacularly kind, albeit the emphasis on "most" should be quite strong. If I can have a good time doing this, why can't I have a good time shutting myself in?