Each one of us has two versions of ourselves that we can present to others. You can give the bullet-pointed, resume version of yourself, or you can give what I’d hope to give you — the uncensored, unapologetically reflective existential crisis that every student at Northwestern knows too well. The question is: which version of your peers would you rather meet? We might claim that we want to simply take the surface level picture of what people are like, but then how well would we actually get to know each other?

This school, both ruthless and challenging in its rigor, can and does break people. We navigate it to the best of our abilities, but often this is not enough. At NU, especially when we are surrounded by the same people for four intense years, we depend on those around us for support. These critical relationships — whether they are close friends, acquaintances, significant others or even strangers — are often the keystones to our sanity: the one thing we always have, even when everything else seems to be going wrong.

But there is a problem. I fear that NU’s often harmful culture poses a massive barrier to our relationships and how we approach genuineness to both others and ourselves. It’s the unavoidable exclusivity, crippling competition, lack of time for self-reflection and toxic demand for perfectionism that train us to suppress and even lie about our weaknesses. It’s the pressure to always appear just like everyone else: perfect, thriving and blissfully going about the college experience.

Hiding under a fake smile every so often doesn’t hurt, but the constant expectation to present ourselves flawlessly is what creates relationship barriers at this school. When we allow ourselves to convince people that we do not have flaws, we refuse to be vulnerable with others; we present the better half of the story while hiding the other, giving facts but no context.

Throughout much of my time at NU, I have felt alone among my peers, frightened that nobody understands me. The past two years, although decent on paper, have been devastatingly isolating. I have felt too different, flawed even, compared to those around me to have a sense of adequacy. Soon enough, my own peers became foreboding figures who affirmed my inferiority, and I feared I would not be able to form close and lasting friendships. I feared that those around me would never see the real me, so I began to resent them. But now writing this, it hits me. It is not that no one understands me; rather, I’ve forgotten to understand them, as well as myself, first. If I am unable to convey a genuine version of myself to others, how can I expect them to do the same?

Easily, the most troubling aspect of this irony within our relationships is the repetition. Northwestern students are extraordinarily skilled in appearing perfect at all times. But what happens when we decide to participate in this refusal to be open and truthful? We practice, over and over, the ability to undermine all the flaws and fears that comprise our weaknesses, and once we forget what makes us vulnerable, we forget how to be vulnerable. We forget that everyone around us is immensely flawed in a perfect way, just like us. And eventually, we forget that we ourselves are flawed, just so we can homogenize ourselves into a community that stigmatizes the vulnerability of its unintentionally falsified members. Vulnerability cannot exist when we never train ourselves to stop and think, “Am I okay?” or, “Are the people around me okay?”

So what can we do? Be vulnerable with those you hold close and those you barely know. Listen to others when they are vulnerable to you, and together, acknowledge that the whole story is far more meaningful than half of it. In the words of Dostoevsky, “Don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

In in the end, the summation of all the things that make us vulnerable — our inadequacies, failures, fears, lies, and self-hatred — can be embraced when we open ourselves to others, and in turn learning what we have hidden from ourselves. Only then can we see the whole story. We can finally stop, take a breath, and say, “This is normal.”

Ryan Condon is a SESP sophomore. He can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.