Misperceptions

I suppose my biggest struggle with adjusting to "college life" has been coming to a new town where I don't really know anyone, and having to make friends all over again. I was born and raised in the same city, never moved, and have friends back home that I've known since I was 5 or 6. Pretty much the only new friends I made were through mutual friends. There was a constant web of everyone knowing each other, a mutual community where I was never really put into an outsider perspective. It was comfortable, it was a safety blanket of strong relationships stitched together. I've never had to make friends on my own before, on my own terms, before now.

First of all, I don't have a roommate. Not by choice, but by chance. So already I am isolated within my dorm, which I don't necessarily have a problem with... This just further encourages my hermit-like approach to being friendly in unknown territory. 

My biggest concern, I suppose, is the initial perception that people I meet have of me. This is not something I really had to deal with back home, because like I said, we all knew each other. Even if you were meeting someone for the first time, you had the encouragement of mutual friends, "Oh this is my friend, she's really cool, I bet y'all will get along!", that sort of thing. But here, there is a blank canvas of perception. No one here knows who I am. They know nothing of my past or future aspirations, they don't know who my friends are, they have nothing to judge me by aside from their initial perception of my appearance and behavior. 

So with this being the case, how am I to act? Do I put on a show, should I be overly friendly and fabricate mutual interests with the people I meet, or do I remain my eccentric self with my obscure interests that are shared with little people aside from my friends back home?

I feel like a black sheep of sorts here. 

I want to remain myself, with the hopes that I will run into the other black sheep in this new place. With the hopes that I will indeed find other people with a similar strangeness. But how long will I need to wait? Do I remain in solitude until that day comes? Or do I encourage this fabricated friendliness towards people I really don't want to have much of anything to do with?

How am I perceived? 

Pretentious? 

Strange?

The only one on campus who doesn't own a Texas State T-shirt, the only one without a roommate, the only one without a niche? For how long?