I Went to Prom Alone. And I'd Do It Again.

I Went to Prom Alone. And I'd Do It Again.

It was 1993. I had a wine-colored dress that was everything. My senior class had gone full ambition on the champagne flutes , we had a word printed on them from a song called Comforter. Hindsight being what it is, probably not our finest planning moment. But that dress? Chef's kiss.

I went to prom alone. Not because someone stood me up. I wasn't trying to make a statement. I just did not want to spend the entire night coordinating someone else's experience while trying to have my own. I had seen how that went for other people. I was not interested.

So I went. I danced. I laughed. I was fully in it.

And also, I was watching.

The Girl Who Was Always Slightly to the Side

I remember standing there while couples lined up for photos. The stiff posing, the awkward hand placements, the we're definitely still going to be together after graduation energy that June always seems to manufacture. I wasn't sad. I wasn't wishing I had a date. I was just taking it all in.

And I remember this thought drifting through: Am I supposed to feel more inside than I do?

Not in a sad way. More like a genuine check-in with myself. Like I was running a diagnostic. Am I missing something, or am I just wired differently?

It turns out: the second one. And it turns out I am not alone in this.

There's a Word for This Now

I came across an article that made me feel genuinely seen, which doesn't happen as often as it should. A psychiatrist named Rami Kaminsky put a name to this experience. He calls it being an otrovert.

Otro, as in the Spanish word for other, combined with the ending from introvert or extrovert.

An otrovert is someone who is socially warm, capable, maybe even the life of the party, but who doesn't naturally dissolve into group identity. You can work any room. You just don't belong to it.

And if you've lived it, you know exactly the distinction I'm talking about.

What This Actually Looks Like

In high school, I was friends with the nerdy kids, the popular kids, the athletes. I could navigate all of those spaces. But I never felt like I was of them. I was adjacent. Present, but also watching.

That little membrane between you and the group? The thing that makes you feel slightly on the outside even when you're in the middle of the room? That is not a flaw. That is perception.

You are not absorbed into the group, which means you can see the group. You notice who is performing and for whom. You notice the person on the edge who isn't being pulled in. You notice the tension between two people that no one is naming yet. You notice the thing everyone is thinking that only the brave person is going to say out loud.

That awareness is a skill. A genuinely useful one in your relationships, in your work, in every room you walk into.

The Midlife Version of This Hits Different

Here is where I want to get real with you, because I think this is especially true for those of us in a season of reinvention.

Something shifts in your 40s and 50s. The roles you've been playing start to feel a little costumey. The social scripts you ran on autopilot start to sound hollow when they come out of your mouth. And you find yourself in rooms you've been in for years and something in you quietly says: I don't quite fit here anymore.

That is not failure. That is information.

Your own clarity is telling you this isn't it. Keep going. There's something more real ahead of you.

Women tell me this all the time, usually framed as something is wrong with me or I failed at belonging. But as a therapist, I want you to hear this: you didn't fail at belonging. You outgrew the room. That's different. And it's okay.

You Don't Need the Whole Room

Women who aren't drawn to social breadth are often extraordinary one-on-one. I identify with this completely. I prefer depth over breadth. Five real friends over fifty surface ones. Conversations that actually go somewhere over small talk that goes nowhere.

That is not a consolation prize. That is a different way of being in the world. And it is a good way.

The question stops being how do I fit in here? and becomes who in this room do I actually want to talk to? That one shift changes everything.

She Was Paying Attention

Would 17-year-old me, standing at the edge of that dance floor in her wine-colored dress, have known she was going to be fine?

Probably not. But she was fine. More than fine.

She was paying attention to the room. Watching carefully. Noticing everything.

And honestly? That has been one of the most useful things I have ever done, at 17, at 22, at 30, at 40, and now at 50.

If you've always felt like the thoughtful outsider, I want you to know: those are often the women who end up building the room. Creating the spaces where people don't have to perform. Where the conversation is real and the connections actually hold weight.

That is the room worth building. And you'll know when you find it.

Love,

Viv

If you want to watch/listen to this latest episode click on the link: Just Call Me Viv