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

by Jessica Pan

Because even if we’re smart and hardworking, a big factor in professional success is who you know. Research has shown that it is our outer circle of acquaintances, also known as “weak ties,” that brings about the most change in our lives. A “strong tie” is our close friends and family, who are likely to have similar connections and knowledge as us. It is the weak ties, the people we are only loosely connected to, who are actually more influential on our lives. They bring new information, advice, and perspectives: new job prospects, commissions, fresh inspiration, or collaborators that we would otherwise have never discovered.

“Authenticity is also important,” he reminds me. “You have to be genuinely interested in someone and in connecting with them or they’ll sense insincerity.”

But self-confidence doesn’t find us: we have to push ourselves to do something hard and live through it, and then confidence will eventually follow. I’d faked confidence and, by doing so, created it. It really did feel like a feat of wizardry.

It’s taken me a long time to really believe, to know, that loneliness is circumstantial. We move to a new city. We start a new job. We travel alone. Our families move away. We don’t know how to connect with loved ones anymore. We lose touch with friends. It is not a damning indictment of how lovable we are.

There’s this feeling that we should be self-sufficient, islands on our own, but secretly, introvert or extrovert, we all crave finding “our people” and physically hanging out with each other.

I learned a lot about loneliness. As an adult, sometimes if you’re lucky, you have close friends from childhood nearby, but when you move away from home or outgrow your old friends, you have to find your people. And it’s so hard. It can take years. You have to actively go out and get them. You’ll need them for when life gets dark or one of your loved ones has just gone into the operating room for major surgery and you’re standing in the hospital corridor, scared out of your mind and you really, really need someone to sit beside you. But once you have these friends, you get to keep them. Even if they move to, say, Paris or Portland, they’re still yours. And everyone gets lonely. Everyone I met talked about it. It sneaks up on you, especially if you don’t protect yourself from it.

Finding my voice and challenging myself to do intimidating things made me feel more confident. This is priceless in a world that can be scary, maddening, and unfair. When there are fewer things we are scared of and fewer things that can control us, this can only be a good thing.