Looking 4 Adventures

I’m going to tell you a story. It’s about rejection, about fear, about unexpected friendships and about how sometimes it’s better to be alone than to be with the wrong people.

When I was studying for my master’s degree I applied for a semester abroad to different places. I mostly chose places that were within my comfort zone, where everyone wanted to go. So because the competition was quite big and because I probably did not put sufficient effort into my application letters, I was rejected from those spots.

I talked to my mum and my grandma and decided to go for something that was completely out of my comfort zone: I applied for a couple of Indian universities. The final choice was IIM Indore and while I was scared to go to a place that I didn’t necessarily hear good things about with the rape statistics and the taxi drivers that screw you over with fake money, I was also excited to go to a place I didn’t know anything about. Life and travel are about learning after all, aren’t they?

A couple of other people from my university that all had gotten spots in different Indian unis, decided to travel together before the semester started. We met up, chatted, planned the whole thing. I was a little shy, awkward, and I didn’t really click with them too much. But I thought, hey, we might still click when travelling together.

We bought flight tickets, organised everything and due to the fact that some of us arrived a little later, including me, we decided to meet up in Leh while a part of the group had been travelling around together beforehand already.

Eventually, two days after having met in Leh, they broke it to me: They’d rather stick to their prior group, and didn’t want us to join them for the journey overland out of Leh.

I was devastated, and, while I acted like I was fine with it, I was also scared. I spend a lot of time in my room crying. My rejection sensitivity had kicked in, hard! Also, one of the guys decided he wanted to take a flight South because he hadn’t packed for mountain weather and I was afraid to be left back, on my own. I didn’t have the funds to book a flight right there and then, and had relied on the fact that we could travel back over land in a group.

It was not so much about the lack of company, because, to be honest with you, I didn’t care about the people. I understand now that it was not so much about rejecting me but that we just didn’t really click anyway.

But I had never travelled solo before, and I had never been so far away from home, from familiar places, and I had heard the rape stories and that you had to take precautions when travelling on your own as a female. I’m aware now that the stories and prejudices are a result of social conditioning, but I obviously did not have that clarity when I, an inexperienced traveller in a foreign country, was left behind by a group of people that still had the comfort of each other’s company.

I was so relieved when one of the guys I had arrived with, decided that we would just continue with the two of us. He’s by now the only one who’s name I remember. The rejection and the people turned into a blur, the guy that stuck around, for whatever reason he did so, he stayed in my memories.

We managed to get a shared car ride down to Manali and then further South. We took a local night bus for 18 hours further, and met the others again in Amritsar. They acted like nothing had ever happened. They probably thought that their rude behaviour didn’t affect us at all. But the thing is, this one situation taught me that being in a group that doesn’t fit and you cannot rely on, is worse than being on your own. They would leave you back without hesitation and without a second thought of the pain they cause by doing so.

Now, with a ton more travel experience under my belt, I would go to India solo. I would not be so easily scared and desperate to stick to a group that didn’t even want to know me. And let’s be clear: while I took the blame on me at that point, asking myself behind closed doors, what I had done wrong – I know by now that what they did was wrong. I might not have smoothly fitted into the group, but I did not deserve being left behind over it.

I took this experience with me. I didn’t stick around with the foreigners at university because I realised that they didn’t care much about me either but I found friends in the local student groups who showed me around happily. We went to the movies, went Sari shopping and watched Bollywood classics together. We talked about cultures, about food, shared the one or other dinner, and I’m so happy that I found them. They were willing to get to know the awkward, shy German who talked too much and explained herself too much. They smiled at my social and cultural struggles and blunders, and decided that it was still worth it getting to know me and being kind to me.

I’m happy that I found people there that wouldn’t have left me back without a second thought.

What did this teach me longterm? It taught me to pay attention to the people that care about getting to know me beyond the shy exterior. It taught me that group travel can be tricky and that you need to find the people you can rely on. It taught me that, only because you are a group of foreigners in a foreign country, you don’t have to stick to what you know. You can just try to explore the unknown, even if it is by yourself.

It certainly was my first step out of my comfort zone with so many more of them to come after.