At the same time that I wanted to feel more accepted, I wanted it to be for reasons other than my ethnic origin. Outside of D.C., the questions from strangers tend to follow a similar progression: “That’s an interesting name…where are you from?” “Were you born there?” “Why did your parents move here?” How nice it must be, I sometimes think, to describe your passion for surfing or Krav Maga to new acquaintances instead of the visa processes of the former U.S.S.R.

I was always jealous of people who were able to move through the world unencumbered by assumptions about them. There must be something so blissful about an identity you picked, rather than were arranged to marry.

When you’re the only one of your kind, you’re rarely just “yourself.” Instead, you’re an ambassador for a country you never chose. In my case, it was an actual country, but for Michael Ain, it was being short. For the other people in this book, it was some other identity marker they never quite chose to be yoked to.

I was surprised to find that I am not alone in feeling simultaneously overly conspicuous and under-included: We are a nation of accidental outsiders. A lot of us, in essence, feel weird. Nearly one in eight Americans experience social anxiety, defined as a persistent fear of talking to or being scrutinized by strangers. And most Americans report feeling lonely and misunderstood. In a 2018 survey3 of 20,000 American adults, 54 percent of the respondents said that they “always or sometimes feel that no one knows them well,” and 47 percent sometimes or always feel “left out.” “Most Americans,” the report concluded, “are considered lonely.”

Feeling understood is important for more than just kumbaya reasons. For example, women are less likely than men to finish traditionally male PhD programs, in subjects like computer science or physics, if they have no other women in their cohort.4 “More female peers,” the authors of that study write, “create a female-friendly environment that encourages women to persist in doctoral programs.” Being the only one of your kind is doable, but wearying.

Lacking connection with other people carries steep health consequences, too. As Robert Putnam prophesied in his book at the turn of the millennium, Americans are increasingly Bowling Alone, and it’s killing us. One researcher found that lacking social connections is as harmful as smoking fifteen cigarettes5 a day. Loneliness is deadlier than obesity,6 and it increases the risk of dementia.7