“Are you really Sean’s sister?”

Much to my irritation, I can always count on hearing this question just moments after meeting the friends of my 20-year-old brother Sean. Despite Sean explicitly introducing me as his sister, his friends always feel the need to confirm our sibling relationship.

This is because my brother and I have polar opposite personalities.

While Sean is a natural extrovert, making friends within minutes with his entertaining antics and comical jokes, I won’t be caught cracking jokes to random strangers. Even after meeting someone, I remain quiet and reserved, as my awkward nature seems to inhibit my conversational skills.

Therefore, when being introduced to someone familiar with Sean, I often face the expectation of matching my brother’s outgoing qualities and charisma. But as an introvert, I find this task excruciating, and I often dread interacting with his friends.

Aside from meetings with my brother’s friends, this expectation also acts as a burden for me at the beginning of each school year.

With his outgoing nature and constant jokes, Sean easily won the affection of his teachers. When his old teachers learn that we are related, they often expect a younger, female version of him, someone who brightens the classroom’s atmosphere by cracking jokes.

What they find instead is the exact opposite. Unless I share the class with close friends who help me loosen up, I am the quiet girl who speaks only when called on.

Still, having an extroverted brother has its benefits. One important lesson I’ve gotten from him is that although meeting new people may be a step out of my comfort zone, it’s at least better than spending time alone without company.

For instance, at a party my parents hosted a few years ago, I had planned to stay in the comfort of my room the whole time watching YouTube. Since the guests were either adults or my brother’s friends, I feared I would have no common interests and would only seem like an annoying pest.

So when Sean dragged me out of my room to socialize with the guests, I protested at first, worried that I would be excluded from the “big kid” activities. Instead, I found that they were playing Uno, a card game suited for all ages; furthermore, my brother made sure to include me in all their conversations.

In the end, I realized that despite the 4-year age difference between his friends and me, I had a lot more fun in their company than I would have holed up in my room alone.

Although having an extroverted brother may pose difficult standards for me to match, the valuable lessons that I learn from him easily outweigh these difficulties. For this reason, I wouldn’t ask for anything different of a sibling.