So I'm 18M, I'm a freshman in college, and I'm an international student halfway across the world from home. I've made some friends in college, they're awesome, and (at least they say) they really do care a lot about me, and love having me around.

But all of them live in the same dorm building, and I live in a different one down the street, so they can usually meet up a lot easier than I can with them. I still go there almost everyday, but because of this, there's a lot of times that they've met up and done stuff without me, which is fine. I know I can't meet them up for everything. But today something happened that kinda got me thinking (or overthinking i guess) about my place in the friend group.

One of my friends was taking this random buzzfeed quiz about what tv show friend group we are, and she called me a "recurring character". I'm pretty sure this was done in humor, but it really has me feeling like I'm not part of the main group, but rather someone who just stops by once in a while that people really like. Like I'm not equal to the rest of the friend group. Obviously I didn't say any of that, but I sure as hell have been thinking it.

Another one of my friends made a "family tree" out of a group selfie we took, where she labelled one guy as the "dad of the group" and so on and so forth. She labelled me "the guy next door", which I guess is true in a literal sense, but that guy isn't exactly part of the family, is he? He's just the guy who happens to live next door.

I don't know, now I just feel like the group would really lose nothing if I wasn't a part of it, like none of them would really miss me. I also know it may not be the case because 3 of them have told me in no uncertain terms that they really do love having me around, and that my brain is the problem here, but its a very real feeling nonetheless.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk