Most people have experienced the terrifying feeling at least once when you try to introduce yourself to a new person and you’re just not sure how it’s all going to go. For me personally, I love meeting new people. They’re so interesting and there are so many things to know about them. So many little things and big things because they are just as complex as yourself! Though I also still get the twisting mid-gut feeling when I meet new people.

As a child, I was very loud and bright around family and the people I knew, but outside of my family, my social skills were next to none. I never felt the urge to get out there and meet new people and to be right honest– I hated new people. They weren’t familiar and it was so overwhelming. You could take all the time to try to meet them and get to know them and then you, or them, or both of you might not enjoy the other’s company. Little kids can also be really mean, so it was always easier to meet adults. Most of them were smarter, always understood what you meant about things, and were generally more kind or better at biting their tongue until they knew you, and they were more complex and interesting.

Upon this realization as a child, there was also the realization that my peers would someday be adults as well and would grow out of many of the things they did. I was always the kid at the birthday party that would sit and talk with the parents for the first ten minutes. With my mother teaching, I was also around teenagers with similar interests in music and theater. I would have to stay at the high school pretty much every day during her rehearsals, which I did enjoy, and over that time I’d have conversations with the kids she had in her musicals as well. With meeting many kind and interesting people as a child, I began to love meeting new people, even if it made me very anxious to do so. The prospect of learning so many new things about them and possibly creating a new acquaintance excites me to the core sometimes. Especially at places like PMEA choir festivals where we all share a common interest in music.

More recently this year I met a new person that I have had tons in common with. She’s really cool. It got me thinking about how everyone is a stranger when you first meet them. Even your parents, you just don’t remember your first days in the hospital. So maybe don’t talk to creepy, odd, weird strangers or ones that are just bad news. But just remember that at this point in our lives as high schoolers, we’re going to be meeting a lot of new people after high school and that everyone will start out as a stranger. You never know when or where you’ll meet a new person, and you might not realize for a while that someone who was once a stranger now means a great deal to you. So it sometimes takes getting a bit out of your comfort zone, but you’ve done it before and can do it again. It just takes time and practice. There is always a chance to meet someone new and exciting, and I highly recommend it.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” Oscar Wilde