The summer of 2016 is one I would love to forget and never will. As an aspiring dancer, I had recently recovered from a series of injuries to my feet and knees, and I was attending the summer intensive at the School of Pennsylvania Ballet. In addition to my excitement about the program, I was also rooming with one of my best friends. She was a brownstone-dwelling New Yorker, and a bit of a preoccupied socialite—but, she had always been a deeply caring friend, a great listener, and there for me when I needed her after a difficult class or a stressful rehearsal. As soon as we arrived at the program, she started making a friend group for us: two other girls and two guys, all very connected in the dance world. We got close fast, watching Pitch Perfect in our rooms together after class and exploring all the cute brunch spots Philly had to offer; Green Eggs Cafe, The Dandelion, and my favorite for its omelettes and stuffed French toast, Sabrina’s Cafe.
There was no single incident that changed things, but rather, a series of subtle shifts. I was placed in a lower level, and my friends started planning post-class activities without me, as we ended class at different times and had breaks in different places. It was natural, I told myself, I can’t expect them to not talk about things just because I’m not there. But it hurt all the same when I was constantly the only one out of the loop and with no say in “our” plans. When we were together, they would discuss their classes and other students in their level. Again, it was natural, but I felt left out, especially by my best friend, who I had expected to at least try to include me. Her socialite tendencies were coming out, and now it seemed I wasn’t cool enough to be worth her time. They joked around and teased each other, playfully fought to sit next to each other. I told myself I was either imagining it or was just paranoid about being liked, but no one ever wanted to sit next to me, it seemed. I tried everything I could to fit in; I modeled my outfits after theirs, started watching their favorite TV shows in order to follow their conversations, listened to all their favorite music, and frequently referenced inside jokes. It didn’t help.
On our one beach day of the summer, all five of them disappeared for over an hour, leaving me alone on the sand at the New Jersey shore, watching the bags and empty French fry bowls and turning red from equal parts heat, embarrassment, and anger. I had no idea where they were, and when they might be back. They hadn’t asked me to come, or even asked me to watch the sandy towels. They were just gone. By the time I was about to become a puddle of sweat, they returned—no apologies, no explanations, nothing. I had to ask to find out they had gone for a walk to take dance pictures further down the beach. Had they ever thought to see if I wanted to come? Had they even noticed I wasn’t there? Surely this couldn’t be natural. By the end of the summer, I felt inadequate, invisible, and betrayed. I was overwhelmed with self-doubt and was trying so hard to fit in that I didn’t know what I wanted or needed for myself anymore.
As a lifelong congregant in the church of books, I took refuge in the stacks at The Strand bookstore after returning home to New York City. Avoiding the soupy hot basement level, I climbed the stairs to the second floor. It was there, in a dead-end row of dusty shelves that I discovered the novel An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. I picked it up because I had read and enjoyed several of his other books, including Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars. While I knew nothing about this book in particular, it seemed reasonable to assume I might enjoy it as well. I was more right than I knew. From the moment I started reading, crammed in a corner of the row and surrounded by busy book-buyers, I couldn’t put it down. What I found in this book was a description of the confusion, pain, and loss I was feeling, with a clarity I couldn’t yet articulate myself.
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The main character in Green’s novel, Colin, is a socially awkward teenage prodigy who has just graduated from high school, worried that whatever genius he had as a child is disappearing. After his nineteenth girlfriend named Katherine breaks up with him, he goes on a road trip with his best friend, which begins as way to move on from his breakup as well as a search for a stroke of brilliance—“a Eureka moment,” as he calls it.
While I was far from being a prodigy, I related to Colin’s worries about losing his talent, and with it, his sense of self. At the ripe old age of seventeen, I felt helplessly past my prime, and feared that I would never be good enough to continue dancing and develop a career as a performer. These feelings ultimately led me to take a break from dancing after the summer ended, as I had lost my self-confidence and motivation, and my body still ached from injury; I found myself adrift without the life raft of my identity as a dancer. The intensely emotional process of making that decision during an intensive dance program made it even harder to cope with unsupportive and uncaring friendships at the same time. Dance had been a part of my life and a part of my identity for as long as I could remember. It was how I spent my days, how I met all my friends, and how I had envisioned my future. Without it, I didn’t know who I was, which was scary, yet also exciting, as it opened my eyes to a whole heap of new possibilities and time to pursue other interests which, in turn, expanded my view of myself.
Near the end of the book, Lindsey Lee Wells, an aspiring paramedic and Colin’s eventual long-term girlfriend, refers to her own social habits of becoming the person she is expected to be, rather than the person she truly is, and the resulting self-erasure: “The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.” While Colin tends to be true to himself, as awkward as that self often is, he also experiences this kind of self-erasure, due to his limiting expectations of himself to be only one thing: a genius. Here, at the book’s emotional climax, the characters open up and share their innermost thoughts and reflections—things they’ve never shared with anyone else.
“Chameleoning” refers to changing ourselves to suit the expectations or desires of others. I had spent the entire summer, and if I’m honest, my entire life, trying to fit into whatever group happened to be around me. This can be subtle, like casually agreeing with a friend’s statement without really thinking about it, just to be polite or uncontroversial, or more obvious, like my tendency to stop wearing dresses because my friends didn’t, and to otherwise take on the fashion habits of those closest to me. On the surface, this isn’t such a terrible thing, but finding myself suddenly alone on shifting ground, I realized that I didn’t even know how many of my beliefs and habits were really mine, and how many were hand-me-downs from others. Lindsey’s reflects, “Because you’re only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you.” This summarized what went through my head on a daily basis all summer. Her second sentence answered my unspoken question. It might not seem like much, but these two sentences completely upended my approach to my friendships.
In the two years since Philly, I’ve spent a lot of time on my own, learning for myself what makes me happy. I like cooking, watching The Office and Friends, and working out at the gym. My style, in terms of fashion, is a combination of classic, European, and athletic. In college, I’m consciously making sure that I stay true to myself, and don’t get sucked into my old patterns of mirroring others–of reacting rather than initiating. I have to be me. That’s all I can control. And if someone doesn’t like me as my honest self, then that is not a person I need in my life.
By the time I read Green’s book, I knew that my summer friends were not the people I wanted to spend my time with. It took time to heal. It’s still something I’m working on, but as I become more confident, I find myself able to ask “What am I looking for in a friend? What kind of person do I want to be around?”
Again, Lindsey helps me answer those questions, “That’s who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.” Now, with my college friends, I have never felt the need to be anyone I am not. With them, I feel relaxed, I feel happy, I feel like me, in a natural way I thought I might never find with a group of friends. The people you can trust, who care about you and your ideas, and who don’t make you worry that what you’re saying sounds stupid accept you for you—no “chameleoning” necessary.
Green’s characters, more eloquent than I could possibly have written or even thought at that time, helped me clarify my own feelings about my identity as a dancer—I realized how much I loved and wanted dance to be a part of my life. I now approach it with the consciousness of how much it matters to me. His characters also showed me the definition of true friendship. I was able to come to terms with my losses, and understand that, ultimately, I was not alone. Both Colin and I had damaging experiences, his break-up and my own “break-up” with friends and, for a time, dance. Reading An Abundance of Katherines was an important step for me in healing and moving on from that experience, as I was able to learn alongside Colin and Lindsey how to stop thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and instead to trust myself and my instincts, to seek out the “people you can think out loud in front of” in my life, and to build a path forward that excites and inspires me—a path that feels authentic to me, no chameleons in sight.
