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

by Jessica Pan

“A few years ago, I was driving through a remote part of Ethiopia, and I kept passing all these mothers and children outside of their mud huts. Everybody I passed stared at me like I was dead: totally blank facial expressions. It was the most uncomfortable I’d ever felt in my life. “But then it occurred to me, while I was sitting there: I was looking at them in exactly the same way they’re looking at me. So I started smiling and waving as I went by—and it was like I flipped a switch. As soon as I started smiling, waving, and looking friendly, they started waving from their windows, grinning at me, and running out of their houses to give me high fives. “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.”

He tells him, sure, maybe, but the fear of being intrusive is hugely exaggerated. The more important point is this: what we should actually fear is being boring and dying having never connected with anyone.

Where do selfish, godless, lazy people go to make friends? That’s where I need to be.