A group of friends I'm in sat in a circle with strips of paper in our hands—each describing a person. We were to name who among us it described the most.
I read mine, one by one, but not once did I see one that described or could describe me. I looked at my peers writing names on their strips, knowing I wouldn't receive one. For what felt like an hour, I named mine, one by one, carefully, thinking to myself that maybe, just maybe, someone—just one person—would see me as one of those strips.
With every strip named, we were to give it to the person we named—one by one, to each of us. One person received one, another two many, and I? I have received none. I knew it, yet the thought that maybe one, just one, forced on me a disdainful smile.
Everyone was happy. (They might have asked me if I received none, but I'd long since forgotten.) The night shone bright. I excused myself to the bathroom, where tears I didn't think I had streamed down my face. It felt inevitable. The sound of my cry made them ask me to come out. Whispers of how I had none echoed through the door. We huddled around as I came back from crying, each of them telling me things, describing me like those slips they'd held.
"I'm generous and kind," they said, but somehow, the words they spoke felt forced. Like words provoked by tears.