I want to feel closer to other people without losing myself in them.

Most of us want to belong somewhere.

We want relationships in which we feel known, friendships where we don’t have to explain every part of ourselves, families that make room for who we have become and communities where something about us that might feel unusual elsewhere becomes completely ordinary. There is nothing particularly complicated about wanting to be understood.

What can become complicated is what we are prepared to give up in exchange for it.

Sometimes the compromises are obvious. More often they are incredibly small. We become slightly quieter about something because another person doesn’t like it. We take responsibility for keeping the peace. We learn which version of ourselves works best in a particular room and, without really deciding to, begin arriving as that person every time.

Compromise is part of being close to other people. I don’t think a life in which nobody ever asks anything of us would be especially meaningful. Relationships require adjustment, generosity and the occasional acceptance that another person’s needs are going to matter more than ours.

But there is probably a difference between making room for somebody else and gradually requiring less room for ourselves.

That difference can be difficult to see from inside a relationship, family, friendship, workplace or community, particularly when belonging there matters enormously to us.

So it might be useful to ask: where do you feel most able to be fully yourself without having to defend or explain it?

And where have you become so good at maintaining a connection that you are no longer sure what it costs you?

Belonging and individuality are not opposites. The relationships and communities that mean the most to us can change us profoundly without asking us to disappear into them.