I never had a big friendship group – now I know why

I’ve always struggled to feel like I ‘belong’. This sounds melodramatic – I am well aware that I have wonderful friends, a supportive family and a loving wife, all of whom I adore. But no matter how much I might connect to someone, when there are more people involved, I feel like I’m on the outside looking in. As a kid, I bounced between friendship groups, bonding with individuals but never settling in a collective (no matter how welcoming they were). I feel no fear turning up somewhere alone, and can talk to pretty much anyone, but in big groups, I always feel there is something I’m missing that everyone else feels comfortable with. This troubled me a lot when I was younger. I would swing between assuming this was just part of growing up, and thinking there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I was baffled by how I could be equal parts self-assured and insecure. (Photo: Oscar J Ryan Photography)

Rarely tiring from one-on-one socialising

It turns out that I am not alone in this. So much so that there is a descriptor for people like me who move through the world perpetually on the outside: I appear to be an ‘otrovert’. “Otroversion” is a term developed by the renowned, New York-based psychiatrist Dr Rami Kaminski. He explains it as a sense of “non-belonging”, or a “lack of communal impulse”. “Unlike introverts, who crave solitude and are easily drained by social interactions, otroverts can be quite gregarious and rarely tire from one-on-one socialising,” he explains. “And unlike loners, or people who have been marginalised based on their identity, otroverts are socially embraced and often popular ― yet are unable to conform to what the group collectively thinks or cares about.” (Photo: 10'000 Hours/Getty)

Do not thrive in big social settings

While appearing to be extroverted, otroverts do not thrive in big social settings – they simply know how to get along. He adds that otroverts tend to be neurotypical and sensitive, with a clear understanding of social interactions, just an inability to feel that sense of belonging. This made sense to me. I assumed I was some kind of introvert because of how comfortable I am in solitude, and how much I relied on it. But even introverts will often have a small, dedicated social circle. Instead, I always felt hemmed in, going along with any group consensus and would venture out on my own. (Photo: dangerous_disco/Getty/Moment RF)

'Meek rebellion'

There is plenty to be cheerful about if you’re an otrovert – this sense of being outside but not ostracised brings originality and emotional independence. There is a resistance to dogma, an ability to perceive patterns and a lack of reliance on others for external validation. At the same time there is a pliability in one-on-one situations – what Kaminski calls a form of “meek rebellion”. He says: “I would call us meek rebels because you are so sensitive to how others feel. You go to great lengths to not stir the pot, so to speak. You don’t like to be confrontational. You will never join a social competition of any sort because you know you’re not going to win and you’re not competitive in this way.” (Photo: Getty)

In the workplace, hobbies and social life

In work, it means being an independent worker and resistant to being told what to do, but not craving the spotlight. In hobbies, tastes are eclectic rather than specialised. In social life and relationships, there can be intense bonding with individuals, but an ultimate separation from any wider group. It doesn’t take much for me to bond with someone over something relatively incidental, and I am open to a fault, but I feel on the back foot in big groups. Even if it’s composed entirely of people I love, I feel like I’m missing something they have all agreed on. Despite laughing and getting on with the people around me, I feel awkward and unmoored, like I’m one moment away from being called an imposter. Either I’m too weird for this brunch or I’m not weird enough for this art party, so I don’t bother attempting to fit in. Which means I would go and bond with a few people one-on-one and leave when I want to, rather than sit in that discomfort, or (when I was younger) drink it away. (Photo: izusek/Getty)

On the outside looking in

The concept, he explains, comes originally from his own experience of feeling like he’s on the outside looking in throughout his life – whether being enrolled into the scouts as a child or at his own wedding. “I have seen thousands of people over 40 years that led me to discover those traits that are seemingly unrelated,” he says. “Otroversion is not a clinical condition or diagnosis, nor is it a diatribe against belonging. It’s just an attempt to protect my right to be on the outside. A philosophical meditation on what it means to belong.” He established The Otherness Institute, a website that hosts a test you can take to see where you fall on the otroversion scale. (I got a respectable 201/280, putting me firmly in the otrovert camp). This, together with his recent book The Gift of Not Belonging, has led to him being beset by messages from people who find this concept, finally, resonates with them. (Photo: Mike Kemp/Getty)

Otroverts okay on a desert island?

“I get hundreds of letters from people that feel they are liberated. They don’t need anything else – just the sense of suddenly understanding this unease you’ve had in your head all your life.” But Kaminski says otroverts can face feelings of isolation, because the world is not built for us. This personality trait which is otherwise innocuous sticks out like a sore thumb. He compares it to the hand you write with. “Being left-handed is only a problem if you force me to write with my right hand. It’s the same for otroverts in a world that is made for belongers. I think that if an otrovert were on a desert island with maybe two or three people they love, they would not have any problems. The problems start when you have to have a certain nationality, or you have to have a certain religion, or you have to have a certain culture of your workplace.” (Photo: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty)

Friendship in adolescence

This dissonance is particularly jarring in adolescence, when the desire to belong is inescapable. “Teenagerhood and into early adulthood can be extremely bruising.” Again, he emphasises that it’s not the non-belonging itself but the fact that you are made to feel that it is wrong. The pain of this dissonance, he adds, is why he thinks many people fall into drugs and alcohol – something I used in my youth to soften the pain of the distance I felt from other groups. Giving this a concrete name and shape could have helped a lot at that time. (Photo: Xavier Lorenzo/Getty)

Friendship in adulthood

But once I reached my late 20s, I had stopped caring about this apparent defect. Ideas about tight-knit friendship groups or finding a huge sense of belonging in aspects of my identity stopped being a stick to beat myself with. I made my peace with it and have been much happier for it. Knowing I might be an otrovert just affirms that the way I live now is the right one for me. In a very broad sense, I do belong – there are clearly thousands that feel the same way, who feel freed by this label. If anything, we are all in some way on the outside looking in – Dr Kaminski says that there can be a whole spectrum of otroversion traits – and recognising and accepting these parts of ourselves, that are other, can be freeing. I know it was for me. (Photo: Thomas Barwick/Getty/Digital Vision)