My friends moved on to college and I'm still in the same room in Kota

I'm going to write this as honestly as I can, because I think a lot of droppers feel it and don't say it.

There was a group of six of us in school. We were inseparable. We had a group chat with a stupid name, a tradition of eating at the same samosa stall after every board paper, and a shared plan: all of us would go to good colleges in the same city. Nobody believed it would be exactly like that, but we liked saying it.

Then results came. Four of them got into the colleges they wanted. One went abroad. One went to a state engineering college and was happy about it. And I didn't make it to a medical seat that year. So I did what a lot of us do: I packed a bag and moved to Kota for a drop year.

The first month

For the first month, nothing felt different. The group chat was alive. They'd send photos of their hostel rooms, their first lectures, their first fresher parties. I replied with thumbs up and "lucky guys" and a photo of my mess dinner with captions like "dal-chawal again."

I was happy for them. I genuinely was. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But there is a kind of happiness for other people that has a small stone sitting at the bottom of it, and I carried that stone for a long time.

The slow quiet

Around month three, I noticed the group chat changed. It didn't die, it slowed. Messages came in bursts: late at night, when they had a gap between assignments. Inside jokes began showing up that I didn't understand. "Remember the thing with the professor?" "Haha the canteen guy." I'd read them, laugh, and realise I had no idea what they were talking about.

Nobody did anything wrong. This is the part I want to say clearly. They hadn't forgotten me. They weren't being mean. They were living a new life, with new people, new routines, new references. Of course the chat changed. Mine changed too: I only had mocks, ranks and chemistry to talk about, and who wants to read that at midnight?

The birthday

My birthday came a few weeks ago. Last year, five people would have turned up with a cake at my door. This year I got seven messages, a call from my mother, and a voice note from one of them that was mostly background noise. I said thank you to everyone and then sat on my bed and ate a pastry I bought from the corner shop, alone.

I'm not telling this for sympathy. I'm telling it because that evening I understood something: the friendship hadn't ended. The way it showed up had changed. And I had to decide what I wanted to do about that.

Three things I tried (and what they did)

1. I stopped waiting for them to message first. Pride is a bad habit. I started sending a message every few weeks, nothing heavy. A photo of the chai stall. A joke. "Remember that physics sir who used to chew his marker?" Sometimes they replied in a minute, sometimes in a day. It didn't matter. I'd done my part.

2. I let the friendships become smaller. Instead of the whole group, I talked more one-on-one. With two of them, it deepened. With the others, it stayed light. That's okay. Some friendships are for a lifetime, some are for a season, and both are real.

3. I made new friends in the drop year. This was the hardest. I resisted it, because I didn't want to replace anyone. But I eventually realised that people around me were in the same boat: far from home, tired, quietly scared. I started sitting with the same three guys at the mess. We now share our notes and our bad jokes. They've become close friends without me noticing.

What I wasn't ready for

On Sundays, I'd scroll through social media and see everyone's college life. Trips. Fests. Group photos. I know that's the highlight reel. I know nobody posts their stressful Monday. But my brain didn't care what I knew. The stone got heavier.

So I took a break from social media for a few weeks, on my own. I didn't announce it. I just stopped opening it. I replaced that half hour with a run. It helped more than I expected.

What I'd tell someone in the same spot

• You're allowed to feel left behind. It doesn't make you ungrateful or bitter. It makes you human.
• Don't test your friends. I used to wonder "will they remember my birthday?" and then judge them if they didn't. That's unfair to both sides. Say what you need out loud.
• Distance changes the shape of a friendship, not always the size. Some of my college-going friends know my life better now than they did in school, because we say things in voice notes that we never said at the samosa stall.
• This year is not your whole story. In a few months I'll go through a counselling process, and wherever I land, I'll still be the same person with the same friends. The drop year is a chapter.

A small update

Two of my old friends are visiting Kota next month, on a trip, they said, but I know it's partly for me. I'm planning to take them to the same kind of samosa stall. It won't be the same place, but it's close enough.

That's all. If you're also the one who stayed, I see you. And if you're the one who left, please send a message to your friend who stayed. It means more than you'd think.