Find a seat

There's something odd about sitting alone in a lecture hall.  Try it.  Wait till there's no class going on and stroll on in.  Plop yourself down in a seat - no just any seat.  Find a spot in the back row somewhere in the middle so that you can get a full view of the whole room.

Feels wrong, doesn't it?  Like you're kind of wasting the space there all by yourself just sitting and staring at an empty lectern.  Did you think just being in the room was going to make a lecture happen?  Did you think a spirited discussion would simply manifest because you decided to walk into an empty room?

Try the same thing in a crowded lecture hall.  Go on in and take a seat.  Any seat will do this time, so long as you get a good sense of the sheer quantity of humanity present.  The bigger the hall the better but really anything over 50 people will do.  The key here is to pick a subject in which you have no interest or understanding.

Feels wrong, doesn't it?  Like you're kind of wasting the space there all isolated and staring at a meaningless stream of letters on the chalkboard.  Did you think just being in the room was going to make you understand the proceedings?  Did you think understanding would simply manifest because you decided to walk into a full room?

These will be your first deliberate experiments in not belonging and feeling completely comfortable with it.  Keep up the good work.