Finally, life is getting like it was in Iran. When I walk in the university, I see a lot of friends. People around me are starting to immitate my personal catchphrases. As a result of this ICPC thing, I’ve also earned some respect among the students. And these all form a positive feedback loop: I feel good. Therefore, I feel less insecure. Therefore, I express myself more easily. Therefore, people start to feel more relaxed and friendly around me. Therefore, I feel better. That’s apparently how it works. I like it!
Another thing that’s attracting my attention, is that sometimes my insecurities, specially about smoking around people who don’t like it, bring more respect to me. For example, I knew my flatmate’s girlfriend doesn’t like the smell of cigarettes. Once, when she was in the kitchen, I asked her “is it ok if I smoke now?” Later, that roommate told me she was so touched at that time. I could never imagine. Interesting! A similar thing happened another time. If people are so easy to get impressed, maybe I should learn to do it intentionally. This skill would come in handy. :))
One of my wrong approaches in the first few months was that I set a goal and sought that goal by avoiding anything that resembled that goal, but wasn’t it exactly. Let’s talk more concretely. I wanted to get to know foreigners. There was a valid reason behind it. To achieve that, I avoided making friends with Iranian people. The argument behind it was that “if I make friends with Iranians, it will be a safe zone for me, and I’ll be afraid to get out of it to know new foreigners”. This argument was valid, but not enough. I finally gave up and entered a group of Iranians and spent time with them every week. As I had already expected, this friendship formed a safe zone around me. But its result was that I actually got to know some tricks about living in here, which I didn’t know before. It made my life much easier and pushed me more toward the top of Maslow’s hiearchy of needs.
The other fact is that making new friends is much easier when you already have some friends. An obvious reason is that you’ll also get to know their friends. A less obvious reason is that you won’t emit a picture of a lonely loser person when your friends are around you. =)) Ok. Seriously. I think the most important reason (I hate this “most important reason” cognitive bias and yet even I do it) is that when you already have a friend, meeting a new person who is a possible future friend wouldn’t be a matter of life or death. You won’t lose something imporant if that person doesn’t like you. You can be judgemental about their character and even decide not to make friend with that person.
Anyway. That was it. Just wanted to reflect on that way I’ve come. As always, the situation is not perfect yet. It will be better.