This past Tuesday, I spoke to a group of female students at my school.  They were gathered at an event put on by our student organization Girls’ Night Out – a group run by girls, for girls, focused on empowering young women to find their voices and use them.  Over a month ago, the faculty moderator of Girls’ Night Out approached me to ask me to speak at this GNO event.  She had read my Verily articles, and she thought my voice was one our young women need to hear. I was flattered and excited to participate and learned that the theme for this particular event was “You Can Sit With Us.”  I’d like to share the talk I gave. I believe it’s a message we all need to be reminded of now and again – perhaps now more than ever.

When your leaders asked me to come and speak to you today at Girl’s Night Out, they suggested I was the right person for the job because I regularly write and speak about being a strong, empowered woman – particularly about navigating a dating landscape that is constantly shifting under my feet. I was very flattered. When I asked what the theme was for today, they told me it was “You can sit with us.” I started thinking about that phrase.

For some of you, it may come as no surprise that I thought of the great wonder of cinematography that is Mean Girls, where Gretchen Weiners snaps at her former fearless and fearsome leader, Regina George “You can’t sit with us!” In preparing for this talk, I went back and watched that entire clip. In case you need a reminder – Regina sits down at her regular lunch table, bloated from eating too many Kalteen bars and asks “Is butter a carb?” Cady Heron rolls her eyes mischievously before answering “Yes.”

Gretchen, shrill as ever, squeaks out – “Regina, you’re wearing sweatpants. It’s Monday.” Regina spreads butter on her food “So?” Karen backs Gretchen up “So. It’s against the rules. And you can’t sit with us.”

“Whatever,” Regina responds. “Those rules aren’t real,” “They were real that time I wore a vest!” Karen retorts, leading to the downward spiral that prompts Gretchen to screech “You can’t sit with us!”

Obviously, I watched this clip several times, laughing more each time. I love Mean Girls. But, like most things we find “funny” in our society, it’s funny because it’s true. Like Regina, Gretchen, Karen, and Cady – we have so many rules. So many rules that govern how we act, what we wear, who we sit with, and who we allow to sit with us. At their core, though, these rules aren’t real – they are real only inasmuch as we believe that they are real, like when Regina told Karen she couldn’t sit with them because she was wearing a disgusting vest, or when the girls turn on their ringleader because “sweatpants are the only thing that fit me right now.”

I started to think more about these rules that govern who we “sit with” and who we leave out. Of course, “sitting with” another person applies to an actual lunch table, but to so many other facets of our lives.   We may actually suggest that others aren’t welcome in our space, or we might project that idea in any number of ways. As humans, we have an incredible capacity to be exclusionary –we turn a cold shoulder, or roll our eyes like Cady Heron. We may leave someone off a group chat, purposely advertise our fun on social media knowing that we’ve left someone out, or openly talk about an event that a classmate hasn’t been invited to or can’t or didn’t attend.

There are many reasons we might exclude another person, and the older I get the more distant I become from the laws that govern teenage interaction. I have to watch Mean Girls to remind myself that something like a clothing choice or a nasty rumor could render you excluded – from the lunch table, from the in-crowd, from your circle of “friends.” But when I truly think about it, the reason we don’t want others to sit with us, whether we are 15 or 35, is because – in some way – those we reject are different from us. Our DNA, our psyche’s, our very selves are wired to welcome the familiar and to reject the “other” – those things and people that challenge us to see a different viewpoint, reality, or perspective.

I would go so far as to say that we don’t want others to sit with us because, fundamentally, we are incapable of sitting with ourselves. Have you ever tried to sit alone? Ever? It is one thing to sit in the quiet with others who are doing the same thing – like at today’s Reconciliation service, and it’s something else entirely to sit with yourself while life swirls around you. Have you ever tried to sit alone at lunch, on a bus headed to a game, or in Emmaus when everyone else is chatting or working together? If you have, you’ll know what it feels like. If you haven’t, I challenge you to try it. Sit. With and by yourself. For five, ten, or even fifteen minutes.

If you’re wondering what happens when you sit with yourself – all your deepest insecurities rise to the surface. You’re aware of what your hair looks like, the spot on your pants, the fact that you forgot to put mascara on this morning. You’re keenly, painfully, agonizingly aware of who is noticing you, who is looking at you, who is not looking at you. You reach for your phone, your iPad, your Math homework – anything so that you can look busy, so you can force your paralyzed mind to work at something so you don’t have to be with yourself – in the presence or absence of others.

This practice is particularly hard when we are in public, but the same is true if you try it at home, when you are completely alone. You’ll be fine for a minute, but then you’ll start to itch. You’ll want to turn on the TV, swipe on your phone, scroll through Instagram, Snap your friends. You’ll want to make a snack, do your homework, walk the dog – anything at all. When you sit with yourself, you have to consider who you really are – how you exist in this world, and how you interact with it. How you are different.

If we took the time to sit with ourselves, we would be better people. We would have to consider who we are, what our faults are, what our strengths are – how we have succeeded, and how we can be better. We would have to recognize that we are both extraordinary and fallible. As Marianne Williamson would say, we are both “inadequate and powerful beyond measure.” When we sit with ourselves, we must recognize both our light and our darkness.

As I mentioned at the start of this talk, I write and publish articles about dating in our modern society. I have spent quite a bit of my life single and dating with the ultimate goal of finding a lasting relationship that will be all the more fulfilling because I took the time to know myself first. In the meantime, living an unmarried life has left me quite a bit of time to spend alone – not lonely, but alone. I wouldn’t say I’ve perfected the art – no one can do that – but I do know that sitting with myself has led me to develop a unique understanding of who I am – just me. Not me in relationship to my parents or siblings or my best friend. Not me in relationship to an ex-boyfriend, a current boyfriend, or a man I’ve admired from afar.   Because I’ve taken the time to sit with myself, repeatedly and often, I know exactly who I want to sit with me – for a minute, for an hour, or for the rest of my life.

One topic I’ve written about often is my personal crusade for human connection both in my dating life and beyond. I believe very strongly in talking to strangers – not the scary strangers your parents warned you about as children – but strangers as in “good people I just don’t know yet.” Talking to strangers might seem daunting, and indeed, it was for me at first. But over time, I’ve learned that talking to strangers is easy. In our tech-saturated world, most people are starved for human connection, and simply eye contact and a hello can result in a beautiful conversation. I’ve talked to people in line at the grocery store, on the train, in the locker-room at the gym, and checking out at Starbucks. In a fast-paced, rush-rush world – simply smiling, looking someone in the eye and asking “how’s your day going?” is the equivalent of saying “You can sit with me.” This is especially true for people who regularly go unseen – the individuals that occupy the edges of our lives whose presence often goes unrecognized and, hence, is often not valued.

I’m an adult with all the weight that goes with that and the adults around me are weighed down by all that stuff as well – families, homes, mortgages, car payments, health concerns, sick parents, sick babies, and ticking biological clocks. Teens and young adults are weighed down as well – just by different stuff. When we sit with ourselves and invite others to sit with us, both literally and metaphorically, we cut through all that “stuff.” We break down the rules that keep us from connecting and communicating, we expose those rules them for what they really are. As Regina George would say – they are simply “not real.”

When we look ourselves and one another in the eye we acknowledge – “It’s ok. I have stuff too. I’m different. I’m self-conscious, and I’m terrified of sitting with you, but even more terrified to sit by myself.” I challenge you today, tomorrow, this week – to do two things. First, sit with yourself, notice what you learn, recognize who you are. Let yourself feel your light and your dark. Second, acknowledge that same light and dark in someone else. Turn to a stranger, look him or her in the eye and, in whichever way you choose, say “You can sit with us.”

Until next time my friends…