For sure, with a closer friendship or relationship people will pick up on cues or hints like that. My ex didn't (we're exes for a reason) but I did date someone who could which felt like she was a mind reader lol. Expecting people who aren't close friends to pick up on your cues is probably not as reasonable, sometimes they will but want to keep what they think is a polite distance vs jumping in and assuming you might ACTUALLY be down and be proverbially screaming for help. If you want someone in your corner validating you, it probably isn't going to be acquaintances. A support group should pick up - maybe not right away but over time - a therapist should pick up.

I think you can make friends who will over time get closer, understand your own particular cues, understand that when you're doing that that you want active help and not to be "polite" by ignoring it. It'll take time and some of it might be you have to take the leap to asking them to and being explicit about your needs - which absolutely can be frightening especially if you're anxious that they'll ignore you or cut you out or reject you in some way for doing that. Other than friends, having a therapist could help a lot with validating what you're feeling, giving you tools to deal with what's going on, help modify your thought patterns from a spiraling or circling or ruminating to something that'll let you move on cleanly.

Since you're in college, this is one of the times you can make friends through taking classes or going to groups. It isn't as easy as, say, kindergarten where you could literally ask someone "want to be friends" and then get a close friendship out of it lol. But it is a little easier than the working world. I know you feel you can't relate as well because they're younger than you, but you have stuff to offer with more life experience and your own unique worldview and experiences. You'll have to text more often first, a lot of people feel they initiate more than the other person and therefore the other person doesn't like them, but that's more of a perception than an objective reality - they usually don't even know you might initiate more. I met my friend in nursing school because I sat with her in our first classes and we did a lot of group work together (she was very good about my pronouns even when I wasn't passing even a little). Now I went to her baby shower and we're going to Seattle together and we talk on the phone and text each other, it all just takes time to grow and you will likely have a harder time if you view it as transactional - as in "if I text x times first, they must text y times first or else it doesn't count" or "if I text x times first and invite them to board games and we have a good time there, then they must help me deal with my emotional problems or else we aren't friends"