“I have filled 3 Mead notebooks trying to figure out whether it was Them or Just Me.”

-David Foster Wallace 

To be different is to be ostracized. It doesn’t matter what your mom says, or that teacher who let you write a longer short story in eighth grade because you just couldn’t figure out what to cut from your cowboy piece. It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself. Making the distinction that different equals special, different equals unique, doesn’t help when forced to sit alone at the lunch table.

We had taken a personality test — the kind that assigns introvert/extrovert, emotional/intellectual — and had been forced to eat with the students who received the same assignment of letters. I sat alone. No one in the eighth grade had the same letters that I did. A handful of my friends sat together; other groups of close friends clustered at the same tables or ones nearby. The other English teacher on the team, the one I didn’t have for literature, came and asked how I was doing. Then he pulled up a chair and ate his own lunch with me.

I’ve often wondered whether it was in this moment that I knew I was different, or whether this was the moment that merely solidified it — and exposed it to everyone else. I had always separated myself from my peers. They prided themselves on getting through assignments on Wikipedia and SparkNotes, whereas I was proud I had never left an assigned book unread.

Intelligence and introversion complete the majority of my identity. What I like best about myself is that I am smart, as egotistical or narcissistic as that may sound. I like learning. I like information. I am actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, in all fronts and in all fields. I welcome conversations between parties I disagree with. I am open to having my mind changed, should new information convince me that such a change is worthwhile. My introversion helps me in this front, to some extent. Not having a book on my person is rare. I read the national news over breakfast and the local news over lunch. When I am alone, I have time to discover new knowledge. I have time to build a skill set, to enjoy my own company.

In her book “Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto,” Anneli Rufus draws a sharp distinction between feeling superior and feeling inferior as an introverted individual. She tells the story of joining a Girl Scout-esque troup, how, to her, “the other girls combined … barely amounted to a complete person. They needed each other because they were not whole.” Introverts don’t need the constant stimulation of other individuals to be entertained. We don’t get bored alone in our rooms. We don’t need to go out on Friday nights. We don’t need 900 Facebook friends or eight simultaneous texting conversations.

Rufus then tells of her inferiority: “… the judges declared me an ideal candidate. Clever but curious, polite, brave in strange places. Then they turned me down. I was not social enough, they said.” And it’s true. I spent a semester in Norwich in the United Kingdom, and adjusting to new people was a struggle. I had to make a concerted effort to engage my flatmates. Only my classrooms were comfortable. Classrooms worldwide provide a similar environment, a soapbox of sorts to speak and listen on topics in which I am actively engaged.

To be introverted is to be engaged in that constant struggle Foster Wallace speaks about. It’s the constant struggle to find yourself and to decide whether you are “wrong” or merely “misunderstood.” Neither option is particularly appealing. A delicate balance between changing yourself so more people understand and retaining yourself barely keeps one sane. To be introverted is not to be lonely. There are lonely aspects, to be sure, as there are in any life. Introversion is a lifestyle. It’s being OK with being alone. It doesn’t mean you don’t want friends. It doesn’t mean you are unfriendly or scary or misanthropic. It doesn’t mean you can’t collaborate or don’t like partnerships. It means people tire you out. Introverts, as Duke Orsino says in “Twelfth Night,” are at their best when least in company.

To be introverted in an extroverted world is insanely difficult. The constant pressure to go out, to see people, to contact folks, to be engaged in society, to buy this so you can be like them, to live here so you can fit in, to study this so you can network, suppresses the introverted individual anytime she walks outside. There is enormous pressure to conform, and yet at the same time to do so, if it were even possible, would be to sacrifice that which makes me who I am. That which composes what I like best about myself and how I define myself.

Sarah is a senior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].