I am currently travelling around Japan, but I pre-wrote some blog posts before I left. The events of the following post took place near the end of April.

---

Being the ‘new guy’ terrifies me. It’s not an experience I’ve had too often in my life. Perhaps that’s why I dread it so much – I’ve hardly ever practised it.

I do fine when I’m new to something alongside others, such as the first day of a new class, because everyone else is in the same boat. What I struggle with is situations where I’m the only new guy. Like, let’s just say, joining a sports team filled with strangers halfway through the season (wink wink).

Times like those have been few and far between, but they’ve stuck with me. When I was around ten years old, one of my best friends belonged to a Cub Scouts troop. I wasn’t an outdoorsy kid, but my parents convinced me it would be a fun new activity, and I felt okay about it because I knew my mate would be there to help me settle in.

Fast forward to my first meeting. I walked in, anxious yet determined, only to have my resolve shattered in an instant. I gazed around the room at the smattering of unfamiliar, staring faces – panic swelling inside me – and realised my friend wasn’t there. I had quickly gone from nervous and excited, to sitting alone on the floor, far too worried about rejection to talk to anyone.

A few months later I went on a camp with the scouts. I didn’t realise it until I arrived, but it was Hobbit-themed (the first film had just come out). I had absolutely zero interest in the Hobbit, and I think that was the tipping point. I begged my parents to take me home, but they just told me it would be a good experience. Watching them drive away, I felt so scared. Scared that with my lack of Hobbit knowledge, I would embarrass myself in front of these people who I already felt so different from. Scared that with everyone else bonding over this movie, I would be forgotten about and fade into the background.

The last thing I should have done that first night was sit by myself, but that’s what I did. We were practising knitting, and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. If I had been sitting with friends, I might have asked for some tips, but instead I just felt useless. I wanted it all to be over, but the night was still young. I knew that unless I made an effort to engage with the others, I would sink further into my despair, but by that point I felt completely powerless. After sitting by myself all night, I thought it would be weird to suddenly walk over to a group of people and say hi. I bashed my knitting needles around in frustration, feeling ashamed that I couldn’t bring myself to do what I knew was best for me, and it all spilled over. I cried .

I fear that this experience – and others like it – have been a little too formative in the way I think about trying new things. I’m usually a very optimistic person (some would say delusionally so), but joining new classes, clubs, or teams now always elicits pessimistic thoughts from me. I tell myself that I’ll feel lonely, that I’ll be intruding upon the others who are already a part of the group, and that, ultimately, I’ll have a terrible time .

This mindset has stopped me from taking so many opportunities in recent years. I never joined a club or sports team at uni. I missed O-week in my first year because of covid , and then never attended another one until fifth year because I figured everyone had already made their friends. I’ve missed countless social mixers and networking nights that would have been so beneficial to me, simply because I convinced myself that I would hate it.

Well, that’s not the person I want to be anymore. What I need is some brand new, positive experiences to help change my thought patterns. I just mentioned that I’d I never joined a uni sports team, but I’ve always wanted to play volleyball, so damn it, that’s what I’m gonna do this week.

This week I: Joined a volleyball team.

[Instant disclaimer: I haven’t joined the team officially; I just went to a trial training session. I just couldn’t find a snappy way to write that. ‘This week I: Went to a trial volleyball training session’ doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it.]

As I wrote the intro to this piece, I started getting hyped up. All of the sad things I wrote are true, but I thought – I’m a different person now, I’ll go in with my newfound confidence and this will be a cinch.

Nope.

As I got ready to leave my house, I started stressing. I played some music to calm myself down and wore my favourite clothes over my sports gear just to feel more confident. I tried to visualise things going well but I couldn’t see past all the things that could go poorly. I hate that I felt this way. This just isn’t the person I thought I had become.

I stood on the platform at Syndal station, the dark gloom of the sky reflecting my anxieties back at me like a mirror. It wasn’t exactly inspirational. It occurred to me that, so far, this is the most nervous I have felt for one of my blog activities. I usually get excited even for the really scary things – because I know they will make a great post – but that just wasn’t the case. I was nervous and wanted to back out.

Thankfully, I didn’t.

I was running a little early. I decided to get off the tram from Flinders Street a few stops before mine and walk the rest of the way to keep myself busy. The dark grey of the sky had softened, and the late afternoon sun shone through a gap that had formed in the cloud cover. I had made my way to University Square – a grassy pedestrian zone near the new Parkville station. This place was usually buzzing, but at this time of day there were only a handful of people around, all making their way home. I stopped and stood there for a moment, watching the sky as the sun neared the horizon. Rays of light bounced around the clouds, scattering across the grass and turning the surrounding high-rises gold. There was a slight cool breeze on my face, and for some reason it all filled me with this sense of hope. I’ve always loved sunsets – they can turn a day around.

I made it to the gym with ten minutes to spare and got changed. The old me would have walked around the whole place trying to find my own way, scared of letting on to anyone that I didn’t know where I was going. This time, I went straight up to the guy working the front desk, told him it was my first time there, and asked him where volleyball practice was being held. ‘Up the stairs to the right,’ he said.

I signed in, got one of those awful plastic wristbands to prove I’d paid, and started warming up by myself. Fifty strangers warmed up around me, many chatting and making jokes with others. This was the sliding doors moment, and I knew it. Every minute that passed without me introducing myself to somebody made it less likely that I eventually would, and more likely that those feelings of not belonging would creep in.

Fuck it, I told myself.

I turned to the guy warming up next to me, waited until he made eye contact, stuck out my hand, and introduced myself. And you know what? It wasn’t that hard. This was the change I needed to see – just going for it.

We started chatting, and I told him I was there for a trial. A guy a few metres away perked his head up, then walked over. He was new too. The three of us warmed up together, and pretty soon the training began. We started by running laps, then practicing some basic volleyball skills before eventually running a few practice games.

I loved it.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t quite the volleyball prodigy I had been in year 12, but having friends I could ask for advice on my technique stopped me from embarrassing myself on the court, and helped me feel far more at ease.

The session ran for two and a half hours, but about halfway through my back started getting pretty sore (the joys of hereditary lower back pain). This was the moment that truly summed it all up for me. I needed to take a 10-minute break to rest, so I found myself – like I had so many times in the past – sitting alone. Reflecting on the irony of this moment, I realised I didn’t feel sad, or lonely, or like I wanted to go home. I high fived my new mates when they came past and called out to congratulate them when they made a good play. I had made a conscious choice at the start of the session to make put aside my fear of rejection and approach people, and I was reaping the rewards. I felt like part of the team.

Joining new groups might never be easy for me. As much as I try to feign confidence, I’m shy at heart. But in pushing myself to join a new group, I’ve created a good memory to balance out all the bad ones from my past. I proved to myself that I’m capable of finding ways to fit in at these kinds of things and actually enjoying them. And I’m really proud of that.

Did I enjoy it, and would I do it again? Yes and yes. I’m going overseas for a few weeks now, but when I return, I can see myself going back and properly joining the team. As for whether I would try joining more groups in the future, well, it wouldn’t be very ‘This Week I’ of me to say no to that.

---

Thanks for reading this week’s post. If you know anyone else who might enjoy it, please feel free to share it with them using the share buttons below!