Associating With People Whose Interest Aligns with Yours

If there's one thing I don't always look forward to, it is being the new guy in a place where everyone else is friends with one another. It makes me feel seen and naked and it's one feeling that I don't like. Unfortunately for me, whenever I'm in this kind of situations, I just endure because I know I won't be the new guy forever, after a week everyone gets use to seeing me and everything becomes normal.

I mostly feel this way when I move into new places or attend new schools. I remember feeling that way when I first gained admission into the university (because I had resumed late), although I knew we all were strangers coming together for the first time, I felt like I was the new guy there. But you see I've come to find out that in other to not feel like that for way too long, I have to stop being a loner and look for someone to talk to, that way I can connect to other people using that one person.

_{Photo by Rock Staar}

So whenever I'm in a new place, I look for someone to get close to, and I remember I had done that in school. The name of the guy I got close to back then was Joseph and Joseph and I lived in the same street. Whenever it was time for lectures, I would call Joseph and we both would walk to school and even walk back home together, except on some few occasions where I leave him behind or he leaves me behind.

But then it got to the examination period and I remember that I would call Joseph about thirty minutes to the exam to know where he was and he wasn't even in school yet. Sometimes he would arrive few minutes before the exam starts or during the exam. This was when I started to realize that maybe Joseph wasn't the right friend after all.

As someone who is scared of failing, I needed someone who's going to take this education thing serious so that they could give me a wake up call whenever it seems like I'm lacking behind, but in my friendship with Joseph, it seemed like I was the one doing the wake up call and he wasn't even interested in listening.

They say if you can't beat them, join them, but I say if you can't beat them, leave them alone and walk away. So after noticing his behaviour, I decided to go my own way because it became obvious to me that both of our interests were not aligning together and if I didn't go my own way and look for people with the same interest as mine, Joseph would end up dragging me down with him.

Few months later after that exam and Joseph no longer comes to school, his name always comes up on my departmental group chat for reasons like him not submitting his assignment or not having a practical score because he didn't submit his practical report. If not for the corruption in the school, I'm pretty sure Joseph won't be graduating with us because he won't have a result to begin with.

Anyways, this is one thing I have to deal with when I find myself in someplace new. I always try to access everybody and know the good guys from the bad guys, but sometimes you never know someone until you get real close to them and when you do and find out they're not the kind of people you thought they were, don't be too scared to walk away.