Pretty much all my life, I've been really shy. Extremely shy. My mom tells me that when I was 3 or 4, I used to hide under the table when my best friend at the time came over for playdates, and it would take about half an hour to get me to come out and play. I'd also have similar troubles in elementary school, though eventually I'd always open up to the quieter kids, mostly the boys, because I hated dolls and girly things, and I loved things like bugs and trucks and science.
In general, though, my shyness was rather crippling. I've never really been able to go up to people and start conversations like normal people do, instead opting to sit in a corner reading or something and waiting for people to come to me. I've never really been able to ask for help, either, because I always feel like that's imposing on the other person. And talking on the phone has always been a real phobia of mine. Luckily, my parents have always been really supportive of me and helped me through a lot of things, but still, it hasn't been easy.
So naturally, throughout school, I was the quiet one who sat in the front row, though I've never been afraid to speak up in an academic setting. And so I'd always be really outspoken in class, but I'd never really socialize with my classmates that much. That got me labelled early on as a "suck up," and I was picked on relentlessly for that, which just made it scarier for me to try to make friends my own age. Thus, I would excel academically, always being at the top or near the top of my classes, but never really be able to make friends. The friends I had in elementary school were mean and manipulative, not really my friends at all.
In sixth grade, I met the person who is now my best friend, and things started looking up for me a bit socially. After meeting her, my social group expanded a bit, until high school when I was pretty close with seven or eight really nice people. I was still at the bottom of the social totem pole, though, and it did sort of eat away at me, but not really, because I had my real friends as well as my academics.
I started caring about how I looked my freshman year of high school, and so boys actually started hitting on me. I was really confused and had no idea what to do, and often their advances would go right over my head until a third party would tell me "OMG he's like totally into you" and I'd still convince myself that they were wrong, because I'd never been the sort of person who could attract males before, so why should it be any different now? There was always a guy I liked who I'd be flirting with, but nothing ever came of it because I was always too scared to actually make it look like I was serious about it. I never got a real date to hs prom-- I brought one of my gay friends-- and that kind of stung, too, because no one actually asked me.
When I got to college, I finally met a guy who I really liked and who I had a lot in common with, and I met him the very first week! It was amazing... except he dumped me the day after our first kiss and then went on to sleep with a ton of other girls... I was pretty much devastated, and my entire freshman year was spent overanalyzing what i had done wrong to drive him away, when the real answer was just that he was a jerk and not worth my time.
Also around this time, i started volunteering at a tutoring organization, and I taught inner-city kids how to read and do math. It was one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done, since I got to watch the kids learn and grow, and their reading skills improved by leaps and bounds. It felt good to be doing something for other people for a change, and it was nice. I still felt like there was a void in my social life, though.
Sophomore year rolled around, and I met this really cute, smart, amazing guy in physics lab. He was absolutely perfect-- a neuroscience major at the top of his class, pre-med, sweet, insanely hot-- except he had a girlfriend. He'd flirt with me constantly, though, and make excuses to hang out with me, and so I maintained some hope that he'd break up with the other girl for me. I kept on asking him to get coffe with me, and he'd come, and eventually I ended up asking him to my sorority formal (a huge step for me in terms of overcoming my social anxiety-- before meeting him, I'd have never thought of asking a guy to anything), and he agreed to go, and that ended up being a spectacular drunken night where we were all over each other, but... in the end, he still went back to his girlfriend. Yeah, I know, I'm an idiot, but at the time, he just seemed so perfect... idk. I was pretty ripped up after that rejection, and I started to think that no one would ever love me... after all, I've never really been the pretty girl, but rather the smart girl.
I joined Global Brigades the spring of my sophomore year, and at first i was kind of detached from the organization-- I knew it would be a great thing to provide medical care to people who couldn't normally access it, but... I hadn't really gone down and seen for myself yet the conditions that these people lived in. And so I participated in the fundraisers and preparations half-heartedly, because I didn't really know what was involved. Once I went down to Honduras my junior year, though, all that changed. I saw how destitute and yet how resilient people in third world countries really were, and so I pretty much threw myself into the organization. This meant writing emails and making phone calls, too, but it was a whole lot easier when it was for a cause I really cared about. I'm going to be president next year, and I can't wait. I think that even after I become a doctor, I'll still go down to third-world countries to help out from time to time.
Charitable organizations have done as much for me as I've done for them, I think, because being involved has given me confidence I didn't know I had, but socially I'm still kind of awkward. And so junior year, when this guy came along and told me how pretty and adorable I was, it felt really amazing and like nothing I'd ever experienced before. The only trouble was, he was really ugly and we had almost nothing in common, but I was depressed and desperate. And really happy to receive texts telling me how gorgeous I was. ugh
This was around the time I joined smogon. Originally, I had joined hoping to learn more about competitive battling and hopefully getting good enough to contribute in a meaningful way and earn a badge or two, but I kind of got sidetracked from that... because after I made a few posts in a thread in Congregation of the Masses about genetics, I got a vm from none other than Morm asking me how I knew so much about science, and so we started talking. Eventually, he found out that I was a girl, and he thought I was cute, and he asked me out... and I rejected him. There was no way I'd ever go for a guy I met on the internet-- I wasn't that desperate. And I had a real-life guy who I was flirting with, too. But he also asked me to troll firebot with him pretending to be his girlfriend, and I agreed, because it seemed harmless and might actually be fun. After all, I've always been someone who plays by the rules, so the thought of trolling was rather exciting. Initially, we just planned our attacks over pm on here, but eventually, our inboxes just got too crowded, so we friended each other on fb and organized ourselves there.
And while we were organizing our troll, we also talked about other things... and by the end of it, I got to know him really well. It was winter break, so I had time to be online all day, and we were pretty much skyping from the time he woke up to around 6am every day. We'd talk about anything and everything, and it became apparent that we just understood each other. I could just be myself around him, something I'd been afraid to do with other guys all my life. So I started to forget about the other guy I had been flirting with entirely, even though he'd still send me texts and fb messages (now frantic, wondering where I was). And I started to fall for Morm. It was horrifying to think about-- what would my friends think? what would my parents think? how could a long-distance thing like this actually work?-- but he was unlike any other guy I'd met before, so after rejecting him a bunch of times, I finally gave in. And it has definitely been working out, so I'm happy I actually gave him a chance.
Through him, I also got to know a bunch of really awesome smogon people, and hopefully I'll get to know more of you in the future :)
And so, I guess the ways in which I've grown are the following:
-Not being so uptight about academics, instead allowing myself to have fun from time to time
-Not settling for anything less than what I deserve in terms of guys
-becoming a bit more confident socially, to the extent that I can now text people to make plans and feel okay about it.
-In general, I'd like to think I've come out of my shell a lot since coming to college, though I still have a ways to go. Talking on the phone is still a big phobia of mine, and I still somewhat fear rejection from my friends when I think of making plans, but I've been more successful at that now.
In general, I feel really fortunate that things have turned out as well as they have. I have a great boyfriend, a great group of friends, a great family, and I go to a great university. I've come to appreciate the people around me more and more as I've gone through life. Best of luck to everyone else, especially those who haven't been as fortunate!
