Why I Stopped Worrying If My College Daughter Was Lonely

“Don’t,” Itell myself as my eyes well. Let your face reveal that this is right, that your daughter will be fine in college. My biggest worry besides rapists and shootings and drugged solo cups is she’ll be lonely. Tina is a little shy, an introvert, not one to reach out to people.

And so for months before she left I gave her my long list of ambivalent reassurances, my usual stark truth-telling balanced by optimism. “You’re going to like college, but probably not right away. It’s this new str...