When we are younger, the pressure to connect with anyone who looks our way can be an overwhelming urge, and now that I spend a good amount of time with toddlers, thanks to an expanding family, it’s fascinating to notice how eye contact and complete attention is truly appreciated.
As a young girl who left the States at the age of eight, and was tossed into the unfamiliar and challenging grind of Lagos, Nigeria, the sudden change in location that introduced me to counterparts that weren’t at all impressed with my American accent, proved to be anything but seamless.
And it only got worse at boarding school, where I was forced to share bunk beds in a large dorm room with girls that ranged in ages eleven to sixteen. Despite my very best intentions, I wasn’t able to form tangible bonds with the mates that had already concluded that my unadaptable mannerisms will always be the dealbreaker.
It wasn’t that I was lonely or ostracized, far from it, but all through those years of development from an impressionably sensitive teenager who wanted to be liked — to the older seventeen-year-old who still wanted to be liked — it became clear that human relations is a lot more complex than we would like to admit.
It definitely doesn’t get easier when you’re released to the world as a young adult, but there’s the extra boost of being flexible…
