Whenever I tend to say that I feel alone to someone, they always tell me I shouldn’t. At the end of the day, I am surrounded by people who love me. This only results in making me feel shittier.

I know I’m surrounded by people who love me, but I always want to meet new people. When I do, I’m stuck on how much talking is too much talking from my part. I don’t want them to leave because there’s this part of me that doesn’t want anyone to not like me as an individual.

Honestly, everything that has occurred in my life has made me insecure on how to approach people. There was a period of time (OK, maybe like a three day trial) where I wouldn’t approach anyone and just hope they would approach me. That didn’t work very well.

For the past few years I have tried to convince myself to reach out to people and be social. The results of these are a mix. I’ve made quite wonderful new friends while I’ve encountered difficulties with others. Whenever I make a friend, I think I am a friendship genius. I can be friends with anyone and develop this cool secret code. But when the outcome is atrocious, I keep to myself until I feel confident enough to keep being social. It sucks to say the least.

Now, unlike my other articles, I haven’t had my eureka moment to share with you all, but that’s OK. At the end of the day, I’m not perfect and fear is still buried deep in me. I don’t want to get rid of it yet. As weird as this sounds, it’s the fear that keeps motivating me to put myself out there.

So far in college I’ve met two wonderful human beings who encourage me to be myself. I didn’t have to wait for them to approach me. Even though I still feel alone when I realize I have not had a social life or even time for myself recently, I know this is just a line in a whole book. Slowly, but surely I am getting rid of the feeling.