Discernment in Social Spaces.

Discernment in Social Spaces.

The Wrong Room, the Right Lesson

I think I’ve finally figured something out about myself. Or at least I’ve gotten close enough to the truth to stop arguing with it.

Sometimes I put myself in rooms for the wrong reason.

Not wrong like bad. Wrong like misfiled. Wrong like wearing church shoes to the beach and wondering why the sand feels disrespectful.

I go into spaces thinking I want connection, when really what I want is access. Access to how people think. How they make things. How their hands turn ideas into something real. I don’t actually need them to be my friends. I don’t need them to invite me deeper into their lives. I just need them to be kind, to respect my curiosity, and to toss a little insight back across the table so we can both leave smarter than we came in.

But I confuse those two things all the time friendship and proximity to talent. And when the room doesn’t offer both, I start shrinking.

I was at this gathering recently one of those industry-adjacent, wine-in-hand, everybody-knows-each-other-but-not-really situations. I realized about halfway through that I was sitting in someone else’s habitat. These were film people. Real film people. The kind who can quote lenses like scripture and talk about color grading the way I talk about feelings.

And I’m not that.

I love film, but the way I love everything wide, not narrow. I don’t want to debate references for hours. I want to know how you did the thing so I can go home and try it myself. I’m a collector of methods, not a librarian of trivia.

So I got quiet.

Not wounded quiet. Not shy quiet. Just… accurate quiet.

I watched the room instead of trying to perform for it. I let myself be bored without turning that boredom into a personality flaw. And on the drive home I had a clean, almost gentle thought:

I don’t think these are my people. And that’s okay.

There was a time when that realization would’ve felt like rejection. Like proof I was too much or not enough or not the right flavor of cool. But this time it felt more like taking off a jacket that never fit in the first place.

Discernment, I’m learning, doesn’t arrive with applause. It shows up with awkward silence and a little guilt. It sounds like loneliness before it sounds like peace.

We’re taught to believe that every room should turn into belonging if we just try hard enough. Smile more. Dim ourselves. Learn the language. But some rooms are not social rooms. They’re observer rooms. They’re classrooms disguised as couches and charcuterie boards.

And I don’t have to be all versions of me everywhere.

Sometimes I’m there to watch. Sometimes I’m there to collaborate. Sometimes I’m there to be loud and loved.

The trick is knowing which self to bring before I walk through the door.

So maybe the goal isn’t to become smaller. Maybe the goal is to stop auditioning in spaces that never called my name.

I’m not weird in the room. I’m just in the wrong mode.

And the right rooms are still out there probably wondering where I’ve been.

-Jeremy