Up until recently, I had been a person who was easily overcome by the fear of missing out. I would feel the anxiety creep in every time I saw a group of people out and about on social media while I was alone in bed on a Friday night. They had to be having a better time than I was…or so it seemed. Intrusive thoughts would fill my head as I thought of a million reasons why other people were living their lives to the fullest and I, contrarily, was not. I thought being alone was indicative of missing out. I thought being alone meant that I was doing something wrong with my life. How wrong I was!
Being alone does not always equate to missing out and/or being left out, and it took me a long time to realize this. Once I began to view my alone time as something to be valued and appreciated, I realized that I began to know myself better, and by proxy, I began to like myself better.
The root to understanding why I felt like being alone on a Friday night was a death sentence for a 20-year-old college student has to do with two factors: my confidence and my hobbies.
To begin, when someone experiences FOMO, or the fear of missing out, their first assumption is this: Everyone is having fun except me! Emphasis on the “except.” Now logically speaking, this is simply not true. If you are laying in bed and knitting a blanket instead of shivering on the side of the road while waiting for an Uber on your way to the bar, I can almost guarantee that you are not alone in this. Somewhere else on campus, or somewhere else in the world, someone is doing the exact same thing as you! And you know what? They are probably also grappling with the fear and anxiety of not being cool enough, or not living as wildly as society tells us we are supposed to while we are young.
The source of my anxiety was insecurity. It seemed to me that everyone knew how I was spending my college years, and it seemed obvious to me that those who were doing theirs differently certainly were having more fun. This was an objective fact to me, not an opinion. Once I figured out that it was insecurity giving me FOMO, I had to decipher what exactly was causing my insecurity. Was it a desire to be with certain people? Not necessarily. Was it an overwhelming need for an opportunity to drink and possibly wake up the next morning with a raging hangover? Not quite. Was it shame for what I preferred to be doing? Bingo!
My insecurity boiled down to the cold fact that in terms of enjoyment, I prefer a night in versus a night out, and oftentimes, that means I am alone. My idea of a perfect evening after a long stressful day includes things like a sturdy novel, a cheesy romantic comedy, dark chocolate and being firmly tucked into bed by midnight. It typically does not include leaving to go out past midnight, dancing sweatily around a bunch of inebriated strangers and getting home at the crack of dawn. Now, occasionally, this is absolutely what I want to do, but more often than not, it isn’t what I would choose for myself.
Great! So I had cracked the problem of my insecurity, which led me to the second root of my anxiety: my hobbies.
For a long time, I felt like I had to hide my interests away, conform my hobbies and sources of entertainment to those of others. When I would talk about books I was reading, I would try to not sound “nerdy.” When talking about music, I thought it was best to not let it slip that I enjoyed musical theater soundtracks. There came a point when it was exhausting. After all, my hobbies and interests are what make me… well, me!
It didn’t take me long to realize that the two went hand in hand: I needed to love what I loved without worrying about what others thought, just like I needed to choose how to spend my evenings how I preferred to without wondering if other people had better plans than I did.
When I realized that I should spend my time how I prefer to be spending it, doing the activities I desperately wanted to do, I began to admire myself a little bit more. Instead of frantically reloading my social media pages to see what people were up to, I began to look forward to quiet evenings with nothing but a cup of tea, a Jane Austen novel and not speaking to another soul. No longer did I feel overwhelmed by a sense of dread and fear of “wasting my twenties.” Instead, what I felt was respect for myself for being able to choose what I wanted to do and doing it without any qualms.
The best part about realizing what I love to do and being able to do it free from anxiety and social pressure is that I can just as easily change my habits. I can crawl into bed at 8 p.m. with a Meg Ryan movie locked and loaded, but I can also choose to text my friends and see if they want to go out for dinner with ease. Knowing what I love to do does not limit me, it only takes away the pressure from other people.
More importantly, I have learned to love myself just a little bit more. The things that ignite a fire in your soul ignite you for a reason. Once you stop fighting against the interests you gravitate towards, you begin to know yourself better. After all, Taylor Swift did say, “I just think that you are what you love.”