A friend and teammate of mine from Denison came down to Columbus to visit for a few days last week. We picked up right where we left off when I said goodbye to her in May and spent every minute in each other’s company. I showed her all of my favorite spots in town and it wasn’t long before we ended up goofing around in the Olentangy River, something she deemed spontaneous and fun. She told me all about her longing for our antics when she was at home away from campus, and ended her exclamation about our friendship with “You’re just so confident in who you are, it’s so nice to be around.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone tell me that they notice my self-confidence, which I found incredibly confusing at first. Looking back on my life, I tried to determine what parts of my identity were equivalent to appearing confident. I was a boisterous and dangerously curious child that loved to be the center of attention. I became more introverted during the first few years of young adolescence, but slowly came back to my spontaneous and self-expressive roots as a young woman. Despite my outgoing personality, which helps express confidence, there is not a day that goes by where I don’t grapple with doubt and insecurities. I actually believe I struggle with insecurity more than the average person because I’m so intuitive. I can feel slight tension in a room, accurately guess how people are feeling based on their speech and gestures, and read into social cues and situations with ease. I think this came from those few years of heightened social anxiety during middle school and early high school, where I would watch others and their interactions with each other instead of engaging. I learned a lot just from watching, which improved my comfort with speaking to others and my ability to make friends or acquaintances.
Being hyper-aware of social cues and tension is hard because of the pressure that accompanies it. With every conversation comes a need to seem relaxed but not disinterested, interesting enough to not be boring but not too interesting to the point of being strange, and funny enough to be charming but not offensive. Social interactions are broken down to a science in my head, and with it comes my insecurities about myself. My thoughts of self-doubt repeat every time I meet someone new. Ranging from my appearance to my expression of self through conversation, I am always doubting my ability to be likeable. This silent insecurity doesn't sound like self-confidence to me, which makes others’ declarations of my apparent confidence very confusing.
I like to make the assumption that the breakdown of social interaction is a pretty common thing, and I believe a lot of people go through similar thought processes. Knowing this is what gives me the strength to express myself, accompanied by my acceptance of the fact that there are people in the world who simply aren’t going to like me. Keeping this in mind is what allows me to express myself in the way that I do. When I compare my social awareness with the social awareness of people I am interacting with, I remember that others are probably internally stressing alongside me, or have already made assumptions about me as a person. The people I meet and talk to on a daily basis could be thinking a variety of things when they engage with me socially, but their perception of me has little to do with my individuality. My ability to accomplish things I’m excited or passionate about is completely personal, and anyone who doesn’t wish to get to know me is truly not worth my time. What good do I have for people that don’t want to contribute to my happiness or support me in my ambitions?
For me, confidence is knowing that you can’t change your inherent personality traits and accepting them for what they are. It’s looking at yourself in the mirror and acknowledging your flaws without the desire to change them. It’s saying what you want to say and believing what you want to believe without wavering. Just writing these articles makes me nervous because of the variety of opinions people could have about me just from reading them. Sometimes I ask myself why I even write them. Despite my discomfort, it’s something I enjoy. Everything I write about I believe in. I was given the opportunity to share my thoughts with other people, and while it makes me self-conscious, it brings me joy. So why wouldn’t I?
