I’m so sorry you had this experience. If it’s any comfort, you are not alone. I felt very alienated and alone in college (and also had to contend with some unpleasant roommates). And I’ve met several others since then that have also had that experience. I found most of the people I went to college with to be immature and not particularly serious or thoughtful. It seemed more like an extension of high school for them with the freedom to be more hedonistic before they were forced to settle into a nine-to-five office job. It was more like they were checking a box or just getting the right piece of paper with the right university’s name on it rather than preparing for a career. For someone who is looking for deeper connections and is a more introspective, thoughtful person, such people are going to be hard to relate to. The office is similar to school in that you are put in a fish bowl with people you otherwise wouldn’t choose to be around. And unfortunately since it’s similar to school, some co-workers will choose to continue their immature school behaviors. I think you’re doing the right things to try to meet more like-minded people: they’re out there, but like diamonds in the rough, they can be hard to find sometimes. Taking classes and volunteering are good ideas, but in my experience, those can tend to attract older people versus people in their late 20s-early 30s. I can tell you what worked for me: have you tried MeetUp? There are still a few that can be cliquey, but generally the people showing up for meetups tend to be there because they want to make new friends. Especially in a big metro area, there are all kinds of MeetUps for different interests and hobbies — you could always try a few and see which one is a good fit. I made friends by joining a book club at a local bookstore. Book clubs tend to attract more thoughtful, introverted people, and I was happy to find a welcoming group who were eager to make friends with similar interests. I’m also a passionate movie fan and some people liked to tell me I was never going to meet anyone going to the movies by myself all the time, but they were wrong: I met my husband because he was the programmer for a film series I was attending regularly. Sometimes too, if you have places you frequent (bookstores, coffee shops, museums, movie theaters — especially if they’re retro houses playing older movies), you’ll see the same people over and over again who are also regulars and you can strike up a conversation. I struggle with shyness so that wasn’t always easy, but I decided I didn’t have anything to lose and could practice being more confident.
It can be hard feeling like you’re walking on a path alone. I used to feel like everyone else must have read some manual that I just didn’t have access to. Not true: I think for a lot of people, it’s easier because they’re not really seeking deep, meaningful connections, but safety in a crowd. It may take patience and the courage to keep putting yourself out there, but the right people will come into your life — and they’ll be worth waiting for.