Most of us have been there at some point in school. The teacher or professor announces a group project. If you have friends, you immediately glance at each other meaningfully. If you don’t have friends, you instantly shrivel up inside.
Then the teacher announces that they’re assigning the groups. Now it’s the friends’ turn to shrivel up inside. Those without friends breathe a sigh of relief, having been granted a reprieve from the humiliation of having to raise their hands when the teacher asks “who still doesn’t have a group?”
You get paired with some strange kids you don’t talk to.