It’s a feeling I’ve had fleeting moments of, but never as acute as it did today.
I first had this feeling during the first semester of my university days. I hadn’t joined the appropriate faculty orientation camp (by mistake), so going into school I knew no one, while others had already formed cliques.
There were about a hundred people majoring in the same course, so we had a large lecture hall. I would find an empty corner to sit, so I wouldn’t feel awkward getting in the way of large groups, and to avoid drawing attention to my loneliness.
It was tough. There wasn’t much help I could rely on. No one to discuss problems, clarify things. No plans after lessons, no shared lunches in the canteen. Whenever lecturers announced a group project or group discussions, panic seized me as I prayed for open invitations or maybe a stacker group.
Life was sparse, perhaps embarrassingly so: Come for lessons, find a quiet spot between intervals, head straight home after classes.
This week I had a learning camp of sorts. It wasn’t my first time attending, but everyone I knew from pass sessions weren’t present - I was the only one of my cohort that was present at the camp. Existing cliques had formed, with their own messaging helplines, inside jokes, and camaraderie. It was tough.
Perhaps it got to me because I knew what was the right thing to do - to socialise. But aversion to initiating contact, not knowing if they were in the same camp group as me, made me afraid. Knowingly not doing what I knew to be the right thing - it was shameful and embarrassing.
One solution is to accept that’s what I was, shy and withdrawn. But I knew that’s not entirely true - I open up to trusted people or during topics I really click with. I also knew that if I truly accepted being withdrawn, then there would be no room for growth, and I couldn’t accept that.
So I didn’t have the courage to initiate contact, didn’t want to give up entirely, and also knew I could possibly do either if I truly wanted to.
It’s complicated. The best I can do for myself right now, is to monologue about it. Monologuing isn’t something I’ve done in a long while, but at least I can afford myself this.
Once I definitively know which camp group I belong to (we will be assigned groups come early winter for a camp trip), I would definitely be able to initiate contact. Because I would know those are the guys I would interact with during the trip, and likewise they would know who I was and why they would have a need to interact with me.
For the meantime, I’ll tolerate. Wallowing in some resignation, some self-pity, yet trying to be oblivious and carefree about it.