During my first week of college, I discovered that everyone had apparently received instructions on where to sit except me.
The athletes occupied three tables near the windows.
The theater students wore enough black clothing to attend either rehearsal or a tasteful funeral.
The student government crowd walked around holding clipboards, looking concerned about matters I did not yet know existed.
Then there were the people sitting alone with headphones. They looked peaceful, but joining them seemed to defeat the purpose.
I was not an introvert.
I liked meeting people. I could start conversations, make jokes, and attend a party without spending the entire evening pretending to text someone.
But I was not exactly an extrovert either.
After two hours of being social, my personality required charging. Preferably somewhere quiet, with food, and without anybody asking why I was being so quiet.
At the student activities fair, I signed up for six clubs because every table had someone smiling at me.
That evening, six welcome emails arrived.
By midnight, I had somehow committed myself to environmental advocacy, student radio, recreational volleyball, volunteer tutoring, the film society, and a cultural organization I had joined because they gave me a cookie.
I attended three meetings.
The volleyball club was too energetic.
The film society argued for forty minutes about whether superhero movies counted as cinema.
Student radio wanted me at the studio at six in the morning.
I began wondering whether everyone else had found their people while I was collecting free pens and making poor social decisions.
Then, one afternoon, I sat beside two students outside the library. One talked constantly. The other spoke about once every seven minutes, but when she did, it was usually worth hearing.
We ate lunch together.
Nobody asked me to prove that I belonged. Nobody seemed offended when I left early to study alone. The next day, they invited me again without making my absence the subject of a congressional inquiry.
Eventually, our table grew.
Some days, I talked more than anyone.
Other days, I listened.
Sometimes I joined them. Sometimes I needed to disappear for a while.
The right people never treated either version of me like a problem.
Grounding thought: You do not need to become more outgoing or more reserved to earn friendship. Look for people who make room for your whole social battery, including the part that occasionally drops to three percent without warning.