2026.01.23 9.39pm in my dorm room

Since I arrived at university, I have felt like a large plank of wood, a feeling I have long tried to ignore. Talking to people feels like a test; I constantly feel like I’m failing. I feel silly admitting this and sillier for thinking it’s worth writing about.

Truthfully, I haven’t felt this strange in a while. During Sixth Form, I was, for the most part, entirely unselfconscious. I didn’t police my own wording or behaviour; I was honest in every aspect of my being.

Since I arrived at university, I have felt like a large plank of wood. I have this constant fear that my nose is growing and everyone can see it but me. Nothing I do feels authentic; I dread what I have to say before it even escapes me. I’m weary of sounding pitiful or overdramatic, not just in my writing but in reality, too. I am a large plank of wood.

I think it becomes most obvious when I try to flirt. I have the behaviour of someone whose only concept of romance is a mistranslated guidebook. My touch is always too subtle or unnaturally intense, my smile a little too wide, and my words are always too clunky. It drives me insane.

I try not to think about it much, but I fear being defective. Somewhere along the line I completely misunderstood what it means to be a real human girl. I think this feels especially poignant at university, where I am constantly surrounded by real human girls: Girls who I can’t properly speak to or relate to, girls who never quite know what to say to me – not out of malice, but rather because I seem to be a million miles away from them on a mental plane – I’m a frazzled show pony.

Recently, this fear crept in, and I haven’t been able to shake it. I keep thinking it will always be like this, I won’t find anyone, and I’ll be stuck, alone, rigid and strange forever. I have friends, and I have old friends who like me and who have liked me. I have evidence that my line of thinking is crazy, but something inside of me affirms it.

For a long time, I have had this belief that within me is an ever-expanding entity that draws people closer. At first, it’s something to adore, to marvel at, but it grows quicker than I can contain it. It tries to consume people entirely; they run, far away from it.