Despite nearly two years residing in the GTA, I have have spent virtually no time with the furry community that I aimed to be a part of when I moved here. One issue is that I never got in the loop, if there is one. I would never find out when their furmeets are. If I knew, I would have been too busy anyway. I've been to three conventions since moving. At the nearest of these, I talked to almost no one outside the party I had come with. My favorite con shut down last year over a lack of will to continue running it, from what I gather.
I stuck with the furs I had already met and the ones they introduced me to; the special group I wrote of in the previous journal. But it was rare to see even those friends. I spent one wonderful weekend with them at Furnal Equinox. I struggled to see them without to someone provide a ride.
As time went on, things began to break down. There were repeated failures in attempts to get together. I often felt disappointed and hurt. Close friends broke up and moved on. Other's found something better to do. The small number of closest friends I had accumulated has only seemed to get smaller since the move to the GTA.

As for the school community, I made no close friends in the first year. My fellow art students were friendly, yes - but they were only there for themselves. I didn't see them outside of school. All but a small few of them were really friendly at all. I met a very interesting person from another arts program in the drawing studio one night. I easily developed a crush on her, but of course, she was in a monogamous relationship. She was one of very few good friends I made that school year, but even that hasn't lasted.
Living on campus, I rarely found time to go out. I had a roommate, but he found himself a girlfriend in the first couple months and stopped living in the apartment. I made friends in the residence at the beginning of the school year, but they didn't stay. The closest friends I made in that building dropped out in the first term. I guess that just comes with being my kind of people. There was a girl living across the hall that I spent time with. I felt like we were friends, we had some fun times. She seemed to stop talking to me by the time winter came around. She practically disappeared. I saw her with her own friends, but I had become an outsider for some reason. If not, that is how I felt. She ended up dropping out as well, then disappeared from my life. Residence became an unbearably lonely place to live.
This, combined with the issues with keeping friends left me extremely depressed and lost.

My special friend (gosh, that sounds like a retrocliche way to say we were having gay sex), mentioned at the end of the previous journal brought me with our partner, who I was developing feelings for, to the local furry summer camp. During that event one continued his angry path attacking everyone involved. Another went out of control on a self-destructive binge. The relationship I was involved with, as well as the one I was developing both broke down. I later struggled to keep a relationship going, but I was trying to control everything and it was destroying me. We put an end to it, and now I rarely talk to furries anymore. I don't really know any.

In the second year - which is the first year of a completely different program - I chose to live off campus, in a room at some Russian guy's townhouse with his girlfriend and their friend. I have barely talked to any of them. Still, it is not as much of a prison as the college residence was. I feel a lot closer with some of the friends I've made in the program I switched to (I'm trying to save that for the next journal). Even so, no one feels as close as the friends I made long ago through the fandom. I have never felt so free with the anyone and I doubt I will ever again.

To be continued...