I Love Being the Introverted Friend

There was a time growing up when I was not the introverted friend. Something about being in the closet makes you, or me at least, overcompensate with volume, attitude, and arrogance. I spent the first 12 years of my life not knowing anything about sexuality at all, only to feel like an outlier and something different, basically overnight. In that moment, I immediately became a mean person - overly defensive, spontaneously aggressive, and generally just vicious. BUT, I left high school and ventured on to quieter and less hormonal things, something else has shifted in me. As I grew more comfortable with myself, and more content with my life, my FOMO, my anxiety about being boring, and my desire to make others happy at my own expense, disappeared as quickly as my pubescent angst arrived.

To be fair, I was never a particularly fun person in groups, and in most cases in 1 on 1 settings. I would always be down to hop on a 4-wheeler and skirt skirt around a corn field (I grew up in the "country", yes), but never at the speed my friends would; I valued my life too much. I would be down to sneak a swig of Firefly hard sweet tea from my friend's grandma's fridge after school, but you wouldn't catch me dead at a party getting wasted; I couldn't lie to my parents if they asked where I was or why I smelled like a stale Coors Light. I would explore the abandoned, asbestos-filled paper mill, but I wouldn't break the windows like my friends would; trespassing is defensible, but destruction of private property was not. I could rebel, but just little bit. And as I grew older, it seemed like more people noticed it, and in turn, pointed it out more openly.

"You're no fun" was always one of those things that cut me to the bone. I wanted to be the fun person people couldn't get enough of - I'm a Leo after all. I remember on my 21st birthday, my brother took me to my first gay bar in Hyannis with his friend's wife. There was a drag show that night - Dana Danzel was her name. My brother's friend's wife got us all a round of "blowjob" shots, which I had never heard of, and was already defensive to, even before I learned you take a "blowjob" with your mouth and no hands. So when I said I was going to, in fact, use my hands, and she said "Don't be boring!" before casually spilling her entire chocolate and whipped cream shot onto my lap, all I could think of, besides sticky, was "Really? Even on my birthday?". Dana came over during a song and invited me back to her hotel room for an after party, which I graciously said thank you in response to, with no intentions of going, of course. Miss butter fingers took the opportunity to slut into my ear "Nobody days no to Dana Danzel" before winking at me. I knew right then and there I was with bad people, but hadn't quite figure out why I was so reluctant to participate in any of this. All I knew was, it was none of her business.

I don't know what it is about doing what you want to do, because that's the way you want to do it and you have autonomy, that triggers a reaction out of people. What difference is it to you personally if I take a shot with just my mouth or if I pick it up with my hands? If I don't want to jump out of an airplane with nothing but a parachute? Why don't you just go do it yourself? If I'm so boring, why would you want me to go anyway? The more I've lived not worrying about being what anyone else wants me to be, the more I've realized that the most exciting people will always come home to their boring, introverted friend. The stable ones who are content being boring at home, watching others take potentially life altering risks, with a pint of black sesame ice cream in hand. Even reading this you're probably thinking how boring that sounds, and I almost hit the backspace to erase all this. But I didn't. If you know me personally, you know I'll cheer you on from the sidelines until you and your liver need a mother figure to play therapist with, which I happily take on.

I know how isolating it can feel to be unappreciated for being exactly who you are. I've lost many friends over the years for various reasons, both related to my introversion, and not. One of the most important, and unfortunate, experiences in my life was visiting Ibiza with a friend, again, for my birthday (not me realizing my birthdays are cursed as I write this). I went for two things; a Honey Dijon concert, and the beaches. I went with a friend who unfortunately met up with another friend and they ended up going out partying every night. The one night I tagged along, I felt really uncomfortable. Whether for valid reasons to anyone else or not, being gay in a new place that seemed to have no other outwardly gay people made me want to go back to my room. I felt unsafe and very very visible as they danced on me in a drunken state, directly in the middle of a sidewalk restaurant I might add. I said I felt unsafe, they said "What's wrong with you?!" like I was ruining their good time. I went back to my room, they stayed out, and proceeded to do the same every night thereafter.

At some point between, we traveled to a beach that took a very long time to get to. I was left with my friend's friend in the sand as my actual friend went into the water. I forget the nature of the conversation, but at one point I was looking up, chatting away, and mentioned how freeing it was to not care what they, or anyone else, thought of me. I think that was the first time I realized, after floating face up in the beaches of Ibiza, that my feelings were valid, as was my life experience that made me that way, and if they didn't care for that, we didn't need to speak. And you know what? We spoke for a few more months, after a long silence treatment, and in the end we broke our lease together and have not spoken in 6 years. And it feels incredible.

To know someone doesn't want to be around you because of your authentic boring self is so much more relieving than pushing yourself to do something you hate to ensure someone likes you. Today I have probably 5 friends and they don't hang out in a group and I'm so happy that way. We sit around bonfires sipping tequila before a midnight walk, we chain smoke in a garage and talk about our exes, we watch scary movies and then get on Omegle to ask Gen z'ers how old they think we are. It's a great time and the people who love me love doing those things with me. I don't know if I'm trying to vent, teach a story, or just ramble. I suppose the latter - we all know how I became cognizant of the value of being with myself; not always happy, but always with myself, and not a manufactured version or it. It is truly the heaviest weight lifted to remove a presence in your life constantly working you like Play Doh to become what they want you to be instead of honoring who you are. Reminder: the only person that has to live with you is you - honor that!