I was new to the school and very awkward, everyone seemed to have there own group of friends all figured out. I felt alone. I had that one PE class that every freshman was required to take. I stood on my assigned spot and walked the track for the entire class period. Just by walking on that track and talking everyday, we became great friends. We eventually went on to play waterpolo and be on the swim team together. I met my other best friend similarly, and I joined the cheer team with her. What’s crazy about best friends is that you don’t know they are going to be your best friends when you first meet them. What is also crazy is how those moments of loneliness in those first days of not knowing anyone still stick with me today.
I have always been the type of girl that didn’t like to show anyone when I was feeling low; I realize now that may have made me feel even worse. Not having someone to share your feelings with can be very depressing and feeling like no one understands what your going through can make you feel like an outsider. When I met my best friends the initial interaction was awkward, as meeting anyone for the first time usually is. However, sitting together at lunch, walking the track in PE, and playing sports together gave me people to talk to, which I know now was a super important part of my high school years. I still talk to them today and hang out with them whenever I am back home.
Experiencing that loneliness gives me a whole new perspective whenever I meet someone new. What if they are just as nervous as I am? What if they are lonely too? Knowing what it feels like to be an outsider gave me a strange confidence that I didn’t have before. People aren’t as intimidating as I was making it out to be in my head. Thinking too hard about what other people think of me held me back. I often wonder what my high school experience would have been like if I didn’t talk to anyone. Just thinking about it makes me feel heartbroken, and I don’t think I would be where I am today. As I look around at my classes today, I can’t help but notice people that aren’t even trying to talk to new people. They either already have there friends that they know or they are on there phones because, let’s face it, talking to someone you don’t know is awkward and uncomfortable. What do I talk about when I don’t know anything about them? And that brings me to my point of writing this article. I know that many people have felt like an outsider before, but what I still can’t seem to understand is why we let other people feel that way? Why is it so hard to make another person feel like they have someone to talk to? I hope that this article encourages at least one person to got out and talk to someone new because, yes in the end I did eventually make some meaningful friends but in the back of my mind I can’t help but wonder: “what if I didn’t?”