I Was Always the Quiet One at the Table
I was never the person with the funniest stories or the one who naturally became the center of a group. I wasn’t the loudest voice in the room, and I definitely wasn’t the person everyone noticed the moment I walked in.
Especially as a teenager, I struggled a lot with fitting in. I wanted to be respected, to be part of the cool kids and, more than anything, to feel comfortable around other people. Instead, I often felt like I was being judged. Conversations became these small tests in my head where I was constantly wondering whether I was saying the right thing.
For years, I thought becoming more confident meant becoming more entertaining. I assumed socially successful people were simply quicker, funnier and better at always having something interesting to say. Because that didn’t come naturally to me, being around new people could be surprisingly exhausting.
It took me quite a while to realise that I was focusing on completely the wrong thing.
The Advice That Completely Changed the Way I Socialize
At some point, somebody gave me a piece of advice that completely changed the way I approached conversations: you don’t have to be the most interesting person at the table. You just have to be the most interested.
That idea took away a lot of the pressure I had created for myself. Instead of treating every conversation like a performance, I could actually pay attention to the person sitting in front of me. I stopped constantly searching for the next clever thing to say and started becoming genuinely curious about what other people were telling me.
Usually, that meant asking very simple questions. What was that like? How did you get into that? What happened afterwards? Nothing particularly clever, but suddenly conversations started flowing much more naturally.
The funny thing is that once I stopped trying so hard to be good at talking, talking became much easier.
Why People Feel Drawn to Good Listeners
Most people know what it feels like to talk to someone who isn’t really listening. They’re looking around the room, checking their phone or simply waiting for the moment when they can bring the conversation back to themselves.
Actually listening is different. It means noticing the details of what somebody is saying, asking about something they mentioned earlier and trying to understand what they mean instead of preparing your next sentence while they’re still talking.
Once I started doing that, socialising became much more relaxed. I didn’t suddenly turn into an extrovert, and I didn’t need to. I just became more curious about people.
Ironically, that was also when I started becoming more confident myself. When your attention isn’t constantly turned inward, wondering how you look or whether you’re saying the right thing, there’s a lot more space to actually enjoy the conversation. It’s also why something as simple as remembering someone’s name can make such a difference. It shows that you were actually paying attention.
Confidence Is Often Much Quieter Than People Think
I think a lot of people misunderstand what confidence looks like. We tend to associate it with the person who can walk into a room, tell a story to twenty people and immediately become the center of attention. That can be confidence, but it isn’t the only version of it.
Sometimes confidence is simply being comfortable enough with yourself that you can focus on somebody else. You don’t need every conversation to prove that you’re funny, interesting or worth talking to.
Once that pressure disappeared for me, I naturally became more social. I spoke more because I actually had something I wanted to say, not because I felt responsible for filling every silence. Group situations became easier because I wasn’t constantly monitoring how I was coming across.
I think a lot of people are looking for that feeling without necessarily knowing how to describe it: being around other people without feeling like you have to prove yourself every few minutes.
Why This Matters So Much in a Surf Camp Environment
This idea became a big part of how we think about the atmosphere at Kyuka. A lot of people arrive at a surf camp with exactly the same worries I used to have. They wonder whether they’ll fit in, whether everyone else will already know each other or whether being quieter or more introverted will make the week awkward.
Those questions can feel even bigger when you’re traveling alone for the first time, because you don’t have a familiar person next to you to fall back on. You arrive knowing that at some point you’re going to have to walk into a room full of people you’ve never met.
That’s why we never wanted Kyuka to feel like a place where you need to be loud, extremely social or ready to party every night to belong. There are group dinners, surf sessions, beach days, workouts and spontaneous plans, of course, but none of those should feel like a test of how outgoing you are.
The idea is much simpler. Put people in an environment where they spend enough time together for conversations to happen naturally, without forcing them. Give it a little time and the awkward first introductions usually disappear on their own.
What Makes a Surf Camp in Fuerteventura Feel Different
One of the nicest things about arriving at a surf camp is that almost everyone starts without much history. Nobody knows who you were five years ago, what your usual friendship group looks like or whether you normally consider yourself the quiet one.
You simply meet each other as you are that week.
I think that’s part of why these trips can feel surprisingly meaningful. It’s not because surfing magically changes your personality overnight. A new environment just gives you the chance to behave without some of the expectations you carry around at home.
We’ve seen guests arrive at Kyuka barely speaking during the first dinner and become completely comfortable with the group a few days later. It doesn’t happen because of forced icebreakers or because somebody tells them they need to be more social. It happens through breakfast conversations, drives to the beach, surf sessions and all the random little moments in between.
That social side is a big part of what makes a surf camp different from simply booking accommodation and surf lessons. You spend enough time around the same people that getting to know them stops feeling like something you actively have to do.
Being “The Life of the Group” Has Very Little to Do With Being Loud
I think a lot of people try too hard socially because they assume being liked means becoming more entertaining, outgoing or impressive. But when you think about the people you genuinely enjoy being around, it usually isn’t because they always have the best story.
More often, it’s because you feel comfortable around them. They listen when you speak, remember things you told them and make it easy for you to be yourself without feeling like you’re competing for attention.
So the next time you’re sitting at a table with people you’ve only just met, you don’t need to spend the whole conversation thinking about the perfect thing to say. Listen to what people are actually telling you. Ask about the parts that genuinely interest you and let the conversation go wherever it goes.
You might still be the quietest person at the table, and that’s completely fine. Being the life of a group doesn’t necessarily mean being the person everybody listens to. Sometimes it means being the person who makes everybody else feel worth listening to.
For me, understanding that made social situations much easier. And strangely enough, once I stopped trying to become the loudest person in the room, I started enjoying being in the room a lot more.
