I’ve always been an onlooker, always been the black sheep, and I literally never fit in. In my church, in my school, in university and everywhere else, I struggled to make friends, I struggled to find my feet, and never really felt like I could be myself around people. For many years, I was ashamed of that. I was ashamed to be the quiet one, ashamed to be shy, ashamed that I was relatively un-opinionated, ashamed to be unpopular.
It is a contest to be popular. And introverts often lose that contest and feel unworthy because of it.
My story
I lived in my brother’s shadow for many many years. I hung out with his friends, did things I didn’t really want to do and borrowed from his social life. I did it until my mid-20s and then one day I looked at my life and said . . . what am I doing? Why am I allowing myself to seem more popular than I actually am? And then I figured out why I was doing it and the sad truth hit me harder than I thought.
I wanted to appear to be more popular than I actually was, so that I didn’t have to face the fact that I was truly alone.
It was an extremely devastating fact to face, but with that fact also came the bitter realisation: when push came to shove and a choice had to be made between me and my brother, people would always, always choose him.
I wasn’t blind to that. I had resentfully accepted and known that for years. After countless exhausting social engagements, I still knew. I’ve always been hyper aware of people’s body language, signals, emotions etc. and seeing the way they doted on and adored my brother was painful to experience. My brother was smart, charismatic, social, kind, popular, everything I was not. I was deemed unapproachable, a snob, judgemental etc. and no one gave me the chance to prove I was different.
I struggled for many years. I hung out with my brother in church just so that people wouldn’t see me sitting by myself. I didn’t have anyone my age in church either and so that made it much harder. Even if I wanted to build my own identity, I felt like I couldn’t, so it was easier to play pretend and hope real friendships developed and they did, for a while . . . but those friends never stuck around when things got tough. And I was not even a little surprised when that happened, but I was still disappointed.
I couldn’t blame them. I shut people out when things get tough. And none of them fought for me. I used to think I was the problem - for so many years I did. But then I joined a job and suddenly became one of the most popular, likeable people there. It was a shock to me - an introvert, a weirdo, but I was so loved, appreciated and wanted there. Once I was out of my brother’s shadow, I realised that people can actually like, appreciate, see me and have fun with me. For once I wasn’t invisible. And even long after I left the company, people never forgot me. I left a mark. For once, I was remarkable. I was seen. I wasn’t in the shadows. I was genuinely popular and not pretend-popular. And it was amazing.
What did I do differently there? I went out and developed my own friendships, I talked to everyone, said hello in the coffee room, rather than sit with my headphones in. I pushed myself past my social limitations and the reward was more than plentiful.
But going back to having mutual friends with my brother was tough, because I relied on those people in so many ways but the inevitable disappointment came with that too. I just didn’t want to seem like I was alone. I’d rather have surface-level friends than look alone to the world. I was buying into this idea that people who are alone are sad. But then one day I stopped and thought, ‘What if I stopped pretending? What if I embraced my loneliness and tried to venture out and make new friends and approach people, the way my brother so effortlessly does?’ And what was an even scarier thought was, ‘What if I’m missing out on that soulmate friendship because I look like I’m more popular than I genuinely am?’ The way a guy wouldn’t approach a girl who was clearly dating someone else, what if I had unintentionally turned people away because I seemed to have it all?
That was a lightbulb moment.
People, especially in the UAE, are constantly putting on facades and suddenly I was one of them. With my excessive preaching on ‘Stand out, don’t fit in’ I had unknowingly done the very thing I hate. I had conformed to what society expected of me: feigned popularity which masked true deep loneliness.
I finally decided to stop living in the shadows, to confront my social anxieties and develop my own friendships, or at least try. It was a game of pretend I was done playing.
No one really cares how many people we hang out with, how many followers we have, etc. people are selfish - they care about themselves, so if you’re truly alone - change your circumstances, break the popularity facade. Face up to the fact that you’re alone and then see what you can do to change it. Because pretending only brought me heartbreak, pain and rejection. But it doesn’t have to, for you.
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