There are few things I find more intimidating than making new friends. As I stood in a crowd of about three hundred other high school students, I realized I was going to have to confront my fear head on for three weeks straight.
“Now, we’re all going to get into groups by our birthdays!” an overly enthusiastic college student yelled into the megaphone. My forehead wrinkled into the I’m-confused-and-going-to-look-rude-about-it look I’ve tried to get rid of lately. Games like this are not my specialty. This one was an orientation icebreaker for Academic Connections, a summer program for high school students in San Diego. I started to take a step towards a girl standing by my left in an attempt to introduce myself, but quickly changed my mind and stopped before she or anyone else could realize what I had just tried to do.
These types of situations have always stumped me. Are you supposed to adopt that annoying, enthusiastic persona in hopes of meeting people? In a high school where everyone’s place seems set in stone, enthusiastic, extroverted tendencies are generally looked down upon. But at something like this, they seem to be embraced a little more. As I looked around for the other June birthdays, it dawned on me that all of these people were probably really similar to me; we were all the same age and here we were signed up for the same program, yet they were the people I wanted to talk to the least.
Stick me in a room with a dozen adults and I’ll find someway to strike up a conversation. Stick me in a room with a dozen toddlers and I’ll manage to have fun while playing and talking to them. Stick me in a room with a dozen teenagers though, and more often than not I’ll find a bathroom to hide in or back door to sneak out of before any one even has the chance to ask my name. It seems strange as the people I spend the most time with are teenagers and so I should be the best at relating to them. Not the case.
I’m not sure at what point it changed. On the playground in elementary school I remember talking just as much as the next kid and socializing with just as much of the class. Now I seem to be behind. Maybe everyone struggles as much as I and is just able to hide it, but it seems everyone else has mastered small talk at parties with classmates they don’t know too well, while I have not. It would make things easier if I had, but at a certain point the supposed benefits of stepping out of your comfort zone don’t seem to come close to being worth the discomfort that comes along with trying to be someone you are not.
Events like this summer program, where socializing with people other than my immediate circle of friends is pretty much required, seem to be appearing in my life more frequently lately. And honestly, I’m not really sure how to get better at it. Some say I just need more practice at it, others have said it’s fine to live an introverted existence, but I don’t want to do either one. I know I’ll never be the girl who offers to sing the song in front of the whole group representing June birthdays, but maybe, one day, I could stop being the one who hides in the grocery store at the sight of any one her own age.
-Stephanie Thornton
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