The truth was, at the age of twenty-two, I didn’t have enough confidence in myself or my own opinions not to let incidents like this get to me. My sense of self was unmoored, at the mercy of any passing gust of wind. This was the age where my people-pleasing kicked in to a higher gear. Like many young women, I mistakenly thought that the best way of feeling better about myself was to get other people to like me and to attempt to survive on the fumes of their approbation.
