Losing Friends Because You Stutter
In life, you’re always fearful of acceptance, in however shape or form it may come. And making friends is no exception.
New summer, new summer camp. I am older than 7 and younger than 11. This time, I’m going to a day camp in the same place I had pre-school, so the familiarity seemed like a plus, in case I had a hard time fitting in or making friends. But it wasn’t the case.
I had friends growing up. I never had a hard time making friends, but I certainly did not make it easy for myself. Already being a natural introvert and having a stutter on top of that made most of my interactions forced. But it did make me an easy target for rejection and ridicule.
I remember I was in the auditorium. It was still morning because most of the grades were together. Dragon Tales was playing in the background. I was fiddling with something, probably playing cards, when a girl came up to me and we started talking.
The conversation didn’t make it far until I stuttered on a response. It stunned her. She didn’t understand why I sounded like a broken machine. She hastily got up, said that I was weird, and walked away.
I sat there for a moment just shocked, still processing what happened. She walked away because I stuttered. She didn’t want anything to do with me because I stuttered. I said I’m not the problem, the stutter is the problem, and I hate that I have this problem. I sat there believing that if I didn’t have this stutter, I would have friends.
I never told my parents.
People are incredulous if I tell this story in conversation.
In retrospect, I know she was the one who had the problem. But that doesn’t mean I might not need several therapy lessons to unpack what domino effect the situation might have had on me. To think that I wasn’t even given a chance is what shocked me. Sure, first impressions happen relatively fast, but she swiped left on me so fast that the disbelief was jarring.
It was a reminder of how quick people are to judge. It was more of a reminder of my own fear. I was scared. How can I do anything in this life if I don’t get the chance to be heard?
