On Halloween last year, I found myself on the third-floor hallway, walking to Chess club for the first time. The sport I had been playing earlier in the fall just ended its season, and I was ready to take advantage of my open schedule to join a new club.
As I made my way through the hallway, I began to torture myself with questions. Do I know anyone in the club? What if I go and everyone ignores me? What if I’m too different from everyone else? Could I even connect with anyone in that room? My anxiety built and built as more and more questions flooded into my head. Halfway down the hall, I stopped, pulled out a chair from one of the desks lining the hallway and sat down. Fiddling with my phone, I tried to give myself reasons to go. I love to play chess, but my feet were stapled to the ground and my head was in panic. I couldn’t bring myself to get up and walk the rest of the way. It sounds ridiculous, but thinking back, I hardly blame myself. For all I knew, I was walking into a room full of strangers.
Luckily, I eventually got over my nerves. I found a really supportive community that shared love for the game. A lot of my fears were confirmed that, yes, there were no other females or freshmen to play alongside me, but in the long run, that didn’t matter.
If you’re an anxious person like me, thrown into a situation where you feel isolated, I have some advice for you! Don’t purposely avoid others and get to know the people around you, even if they seem like strangers. Remember that no one has a vendetta against you off the bat, so don’t be afraid to ask one of them to play a game! In the future, I hope no girl will have to feel as out of place and fearful as I did joining their school’s chess club.
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