Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes

by Jessica Pan

but I had already done the hard part—choosing to be a duplicitous motherfucker.

They would tell my parents that I had died dressed like an assassin, reading a guide to eight-minute abs.

My confidence was dangerously high. Like, tall-American-men-after-four-beers high.

I feel like a kindly village idiot wandering the city.

pluralistic ignorance: everyone is actually willing to talk but thinks everyone else is unwilling.

“That’s the truth of the world, Jessica,” he says, casually full-naming me to let me know something big is coming. “Nobody waves—but everybody waves back.”

“You really aren’t special,” she tells me. “You’re not the center of the universe.”

“Nobody cares if you fail,”

“Your dad can talk to anyone,” my mom likes to say. Yes, OK, but should he?

Where do you go to make friends when you’re an adult? No, honestly,

Charisma: 10/10. Would charisma again.

This feels like a manual for Human Behavior 101, but I clearly need it.

sometimes, actually, it’s so much healthier to leave the house, go outside, see people, and experience something new.”

I think I might be charisma-ing.

A small book club, at someone’s house, eating homemade pie: this is where I want to be.

I hate these joyful bastards.

I might actually be a joyful bastard.

“Nobody waves, but everyone waves back.”

“I trust that the universe will take care of everything.”

I want to kill him. But there are too many witnesses.