Kayla Wikaryasz-News Staff Writer

As I’ve entered the latter years of my twenties, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to navigate society.

I am particularly fearful of becoming a pariah because of a poorly crafted Facebook post or a viral video of me placing a can of tomato soup back in the chicken noodle section. Though fearful, I find being outcasted by society equally thrilling.

Society wants me to be perfect in every which way possible or risk being outcasted for a “hot take.” I could be likened to a Nazi if I prefer watching WW2 documentaries over Love is Blind, for example.

My peers only seem to want friends who think and act just as they do. It is as if they don’t have the time or the interest to understand someone as a complex human being. They just want perfectly crafted soundbites, rehearsed talking points, and slicked back pony tails.

When I was away at college, I became friends with a peer who was the opposite of me in many ways. Some of our values overlapped, but we ghastly differing opinions on the world.

I found this person incredibly interesting as they had a brilliant mind, a beautiful understanding of the spiritual, and lived their life vicariously through characters in video games.

I enjoyed our conversations about writing, literature, and art. I was also enamored by their passion for technology, though I often zoned out when they started talking about circuit boards.

I, however, had concerns they were “coasting” in life, and had plans of grandeur without a realistic plan to achieve goals like writing scripts for indie video games and moving to Italy without knowing Italian. I was a bystander to their cancelled plans, skipped classes, complaints about university admin, and missed deadlines.

I wish I had the courage to say, “Hey, maybe you should reconsider your goals?” Would I have been a better friend if I were honest?

We didn’t have a ton in common except for the classes we took and our shared interest in witchcraft. They taught me how to read tarot and I think I showed them the importance of a good work ethic.

One day, while we were chatting on a rainy day in a coffee shop, kitty-corner to campus, my friend told me, “If I don’t like the things someone says, I cut them off. And when I cut people out of my life, they are dead to me.”

After my friend’s confession, I viewed them differently. I viewed our friendship differently. For weeks afterwards, I felt as if I were always walking around on egg shells, terrified that if I had an “incorrect opinion,” then I’d be tossed to the side.

I think I eventually did say something to “offend them” because they no longer reply to my Snapchat messages.

This issue has spread outwards to my relationships with people my age.

When I bartended, my favorite customers to wait on were people over fifty, grey haired, and retired. I enjoyed listening to their war stories, their failures, and their grief. Mostly, I enjoyed asking their opinions of things without sharing mine.

Most of their opinions were vastly separate from my own. However, I felt a beautiful connection to these individuals when there was a moment of, “Oh! Yes, I understand why you think this way, though I never have.”

The closest friendships I have are the ones in which there is a slim middle-ground between. I enjoy deep conversations and respectful debate. Furthermore, I respect individuals more when they place a mirror in front of my face and say, “Look at yourself and tell me all your flaws. Tell me all the things you’ve done to damage your world.” I respect individuals less when they tell me that I am perfect in every which way possible, because they are lying.

Perfection — especially perfect thought — is impossible. Perfect opinions are fiction — they are made up fairies that elves play with in the woods when the gremlins are away. Therefore, I do not expect humans to be perfect, because humans are real, tangible, and inexplicably faulted. That is why life is so magical.

I expect humans to be beautifully, incandescently flawed. I wish for people to see me as flawed as well, because to see me in my imperfect completeness is to truly see my soul.

My friend who I left at college never saw my soul. Instead, they saw a carefully crafted version of myself who nodded and smiled just so to make them believe that I thought, loved, grieved, and aspired just as they did. In other words, I made myself boring so they’d like me.