When I was eight years old I showed up to soccer practice wearing pink and white polka-dotted leggings under multi-colored plaid shorts and watched my coach nearly fall over. My mom shot him a resigned look as I joined the other girls, each wearing the expected attire of black shorts and a white shirt. I didn’t think anything of it.

As I grew up, that soccer practice revealed itself to be a microcosm of the kind of experience I would have in this world. It became a pattern. I would walk into a new environment and immediately find myself on the outside. I would look around and watch as certain people naturally gravitated towards each other, finding their flock. It wasn’t like I was antisocial or awkward or mean, I just never wanted it badly enough. The feeling of being around people that I didn’t love was far worse than the feeling of being alone. This, I came to understand, was not an opinion that the majority of my peers shared. But I didn’t mind them. We were adolescents and fitting in was supposed to be everything.

By the time that I was applying to college, all anyone every told me was how sure they were that I would “find my people” there. It seemed to be an accepted truth that no matter who you were, you would find your group of soul mates somewhere between a dorm room and a lecture hall. Toxic conformity would be a thing of the past and everyone would their own person.

As a senior in college I can confidently say that they were wrong. I walk around campus and see the same outfit a hundred times. There is an unspoken uniform to every season. It’s incredible, actually. And this university is massive. I have taken countless classes, joined clubs, had six roommates, gone to yoga classes, talked to and be-friended an endless array of peers—but have yet to authentically connect with anyone.

And I’m cool with that. If I weren’t, it would be all too easy to slap on a pair of black leggings and spend my Friday nights at a beer pong table. Some people love that. And sometimes I think my life would be easier if I were one of them. But I’m the kid who wore polka-dotted leggings to soccer practice and there was never going to be any getting around that. I wear dresses over jeans and colorful hats and I actually read the assigned books. I actually like school. I get embarrassingly disappointed when a professor cancels class and I am equally as sad to be graduating this fall as I am unbearably excited. These are not sentiments I have found my peers to share. And that’s totally fine. I stopped caring about fitting in during the first year and have fully embraced college as an experience of solitary self-discovery ever since. I’ve spent the years connecting with professors and genuinely learning things that have altered the way that I see the world. I stopped seeing college as a time to be involved with everyone else’s lives and started seeing it as my own journey. Over time that led me to know exactly who I am and what I want. So sit alone and wear cherry red pants and geek out over a book. I think it’s cool.

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