Blonde, blonde, blonde. I am in a sea of blondes. It is orientation and I have arrived in school only to be surrounded by a mass of beautiful people all giggling away and greeting each other as though they have been best friends for years. Oh, wait. They have! My heart starts racing and I sit on a couch in the corner staring at all of these gorgeous people around me and I realize that the state of California, and its notorious greek society, has upped and moved itself here to Prague, masses of cliques of “brothers and sisters for life.” I feel my anxiety growing and can’t help but feel awkward and out of place as I continue to watch this social reunion take place around me. There are people on the sofa next to me and yet I feel I am sitting here alone, unable to find words to even try and join the conversation happening next to me. I am afraid, less than 24 hours after landing here, and I think I might be ready to go home.
A huge part of my choosing to study abroad was to try to find myself, and I had hoped that a new country, with new and adventurous people would be just the thing to help me. I felt that while I had a group of friends back at school, I never really found my “girl squad.” Going into college you expect that you will live the greatest four years of your life and, as cliche as it sounds, meet the people who are going to be the bridesmaids at your wedding. I even joined two sororities at two different times to convince myself that I could find my place, my people. I dropped both within 24 hours and maybe a part of that was fear and anxiety of whether or not they’d really like me. Or maybe I just wanted to know that I could. Either way, I like to tell myself that I didn’t need to be friends with people I normally wouldn’t be, simply by going through tedious pledging with them and sharing common letters. I wanted to find my group based off truthful interactions and honest connections. So abroad seemed to be the perfect way to start anew, if I couldn’t do it at home, I could surely do it halfway across the world.
Upon entering this barbie doll world at my new school in Prague, I realized that the greek life here was even worse than the one back home. It was idealized perfection, perfectly put together girls with there perfect instagrams to boot. I knew it was stupid and yet again, I felt myself longing to fit in. I made a wonderful friend that first day at orientation named Mary*, another girl shocked by what she was seeing. She was in a sorority too, but not the kind that hazes and chooses superficiality over genuineness. Despite commenting about our common dislike at our surroundings, there was a part of me that still wanted to be a part of it. Because of this, I ended up hanging out with the wrong crowd and distancing myself from Mary for the first month and a half of the semester. I chose girls caught up with beauty, boys, and drinking over a friend who was more down to earth and honest. I chose girls who made fun of people who weren’t as pretty, looked down on girls who struggled from mental illness, and made malicious comments on others quirks and personalities. I traveled with them on weekends, always feeling slightly out of place, looking for the fun of thrills and adventure being with them and ignoring my own morals and self identity. I am ashamed to say it took a weekend of their leaving me alone in a foreign country numerous times while they drunkenly pursued boys since I was “the one with a boyfriend.” Thank goodness, Mary remained there for me when I came to her the week following that horrible weekend, and opened her door to me despite my distance and poor decisions. She was there for me when my life wasn’t so glamorous and we have only grown closer since.
This experience has made me realize that I needed to stop looking, stop trying so hard to find the people I need to “fit in” with. If I am thinking about what I need to say, how I need to look, and what “act” I need to put on so the people around me will like me, then that is probably not the crowd I am meant to be in. I always felt I was lacking a “girl squad” but maybe I should just accept the fact that I have always been more of a guys girl anyways. Maybe my tendency for a few close girl friends isn’t my inability to meet people but my pickiness in choosing quality over quantity.
I think that the biggest mistake in my efforts to find myself was that I tried to do so in the context of a social group. I thought that by forming a solid “crew” I could find my place within this group and therefore define myself as a part of the whole I would fit into. I have had many ups and downs while abroad in terms of friendships and constant fluctuations of self love to self loathing but what I have understood most is that it doesn’t matter where you are in the world. You can’t run away from who you are. To truly be happy you need to accept who you are for those around you to as well. I am still working on this, it’s something I struggle with every day but it’s important that I keep the people who help build me up around me close to me. I am so fortunate to have the close friends and amazing boyfriend that I do, and if anything, this experience has taught me to hang out to those special people when you find them because they can be very hard to come by.
*Name has been changed for privacy of the individual
The luck of Lilah 