Being Seen in the Quiet

Sometimes it feels like everyone expects you to be lonely if you’re alone. Like there's a default setting for teenagers – headphones on, shoulders slumped, staring at your phone because you *should* feel something sad and empty when nobody else is around. It used to make me feel… guilty, almost. Like I was failing at being an adolescent correctly.

It’s funny, isn’t it? How a lot of what we think about feelings comes from somewhere we haven't actually been. My dad always says something like, "Well, if you just went out and *did* things," which is basically his version of advice for any vaguely melancholy emotion I express. As if being in a crowded place automatically guarantees not feeling alone.

I remember the National show last year. There were so many people. More than I’d ever been around at once, probably. The music was incredible, obviously—it always is—but what stuck with me wasn't just the sound. It was how disconnected I still felt *within* that massive crowd. Surrounded by strangers singing along to lyrics that felt intensely personal, and yet…no one knew anything about me. It made me realize being surrounded doesn’t fix things.

There's a difference between choosing to be alone – like when I sit on the porch swing with my notebook after school, writing about Phoebe Bridgers or whatever else is rattling around in my head – and feeling fundamentally lonely. The first one feels... peaceful. It’s a space where I can just *be*, without any pressure to perform or connect.

I've been reading about this study that basically says the same thing, but with science words instead of porch swings and angsty teenage poetry. They looked at how teenagers feel when they’re by themselves, versus how they feel in a group, and it turns out that who you are – your personality – has a *lot* to do with whether or not being alone feels good or bad. It's like... some people can just naturally handle the quiet better than others.

My mom gets it more than my dad does, I think. She’ll ask what I’m writing about and genuinely listen, even if she doesn’t entirely *get* why I need to write about music instead of going to a party or whatever everyone else is doing on a Friday night. She understands that the things I create—the blog posts, the lyrics I try to scribble down—are my way of connecting when direct connection feels too difficult.

It makes you wonder what it takes to feel truly seen. Not just acknowledged, but *seen*. Like someone really gets those messy, complicated feelings swirling around inside your head. It's not about being popular or having a million followers on some social media thing. It’s something more… personal. Something that has less to do with the number of people you're surrounded by and more to do with how those people *see* you.

The thing I’m learning, slowly, is that sometimes the quiet space – the solitude – isn't a symptom of a problem. It can be a refuge. And maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to need it. Even if my dad doesn’t quite understand why.