It’s rare whenever I do feel anonymous, but the only reoccurring situation in which I do is when my cousins like to bring me up in a conversation to people I don’t know. That’s quite the thought to just throw out there, I understand that so I’ll do what I can to give the best understanding.

Now, ironically they’ll remain to be anonymous as I bring this up to people they won’t know but it’s fine. The cousins I’m bringing into the conversation are more like siblings to me more than anything. The big brother of the two is hardly any younger than me, and I ended growing up with him since the day he was practically capable of moving on his own. A couple years later, his sister was born and we became the trio at every gathering/get togethers as years passed. I’ve spent the last few summers with them, and we tend to make the best of it while we’re all together. In the mist of all the things, they’re usually trying to get me to meet the people they know. My cousins would talk about how we did x, y, and z some times to their friends (so they’ve told me). All the other person can question is “Whose that?” Being the stranger in the group is weird for me. I naturally feel like they have some kind of expectations that I have no idea about, so I stay humble with my words. Eventually I met a good number of them and they’re all cool, but its that stranger feeling in the beginning that’s a bit unsettling.

I guess that’s what you could consider social anxiety. I haven’t formally met anyone after being out of college for so long in the spring semester leading up to that summer too. That contributes to the feeling, especially when I think about how many people I managed to meet last summer alone. I was thrown into group chats, drove around town with people I was getting to know, and the list continues. I think I managed to make another 20 contact to phone within a weeks time, so hopefully that’ll give you the idea. Grateful to have met them all, but that’s really as anonymous as it gets for me. I tend to approach people first, so the only anonymous person/people are the ones I’m approaching for the most part. Not sure where I would consider a time where I’ve been ‘anonymous’ by intention or not. It’s usually the people around me that make me anonymous if that helps.