Lonely and Learning

An interesting thing happened to me yesterday.
I was in a class of 200 students,sitting in the middle of the room with my fellow adult learners and the prof announced a ten minute break.  In the timespan of two seconds everyone had grabbed their friend and exited the auditorium.  Even my fellow adult learners, who would be in their 50s or 60s, gravitated to one another and left the room chatting about how many classes/grandchildren they had.  I on the other hand stood up, looked around and promptly sat back down to get some quality reading time in.
Now this is not a pity posting.  I did become friends with two fellow adult learners when I was in class this summer and they have remained a constant instrument of support and have helped me to transition onto the campus and I am especially grateful.  However, we do not attend classes together and our schedules only allow us to meet once a week for lunch.  It helps but I am acutely aware of how moving from online study to campus study has impacted me having a peer group with my fellow third year classmates.
I know that I am not at school to make friends (that is my dad's voice in my head) but isn't that part of the experience?  Has being an adult learner changed that experience as well.  Not only am I excluded from the experience of university as a youth and all that it entails (residence, parties, autonomy), has coming back as an adult also excluded me from a common experience like establishing new friendships?  Don't get me wrong, students are nice to me, but they have been in school together for two years and I just appeared out of nowhere resembling a life similar to their parent's more than their own.
Okay I am not being completely fair, I did make two friends this summer.  But here I am sitting in the chaos of the lunch room on my Univesity college campus, eating lunch by myself and when I look around, I am the only one who does not have someone to talk to.
I think the real problem lies in the fact that I am social by nature (strength or weakness depends on the situation) and these first few weeks have been an adjustment physically, psychologically, biologically (remember the old brain) and emotionally (isolation sucks).  I am outside the comfort of my family unit (can you imagine bringing three kids to university everyday), I left the stability of my job and I am the new kid in school.
I am thankful for my friends and family that are supporting me while I navigate this new experience!