What It Means to Be Seen

What It Means to Be Seen

By [ Muhammad Saqib]

For most of my life, I felt like wallpaper. Present, but not remarkable. Visible, but unnoticed. People would pass by me the way they pass by streetlights acknowledging only the function, not the flickering beneath the surface.

I was quiet. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I didn’t think anyone would care to hear it. I laughed at the right moments, nodded when I was supposed to, and smiled just enough to not draw concern. I learned early on that being agreeable was the fastest route to being left alone, and being left alone was preferable to being misunderstood.

But being invisible and being safe are not the same thing.

Loneliness isn’t always about being alone. Sometimes it’s about being surrounded by people, noise, expectation and still feeling like your soul is pressed up against glass. You can see the world. It just doesn’t see you back.

I remember the first time I felt truly seen. Not looked at. Not observed or sized up. Seen in that deep, soul-level way that makes your breath catch because someone just read the parts of you even you forgot how to access.

It was a stranger, surprisingly.

She was a guest speaker in a creative writing seminar I had nearly skipped. I was half-listening while scrolling on my phone, mentally preparing for another discussion about "finding your voice." I already believed mine was lost.

She spoke with this quiet fire. Nothing flashy. Just…real. She talked about writing not as performance but as translation of emotion, of trauma, of joy. She said, "Sometimes you write because there are things inside you too complex to carry in silence."

And in that moment, something cracked.

After class, she came up to me—me, the wallflower, the one who never raised a hand or made a sound. “Your eyes,” she said, “look like they have something to say.”

I froze. What do you even say to that?

She didn’t press. Just handed me a card with her contact info and said, “If you ever feel like saying it, I’ll listen.”

I didn’t call her. Not right away. But I did start writing again.

Not for grades or attention. Just…writing. Late nights. Frantic texts to myself. Notes scrawled on receipts and napkins. I wrote about the way silence feels like punishment. About pretending. About the ache of being in a room full of people who love the version of you that doesn’t exist.

And for the first time, I realized I wasn’t angry at people for not seeing me. I was angry at myself for hiding.

Being seen isn’t just about someone looking in. It’s about allowing yourself to be open enough to let them.

That takes courage. It takes the kind of brutal honesty that makes your skin itch. You have to be willing to be known, even in the moments you don’t know who you are. Especially then.

Eventually, I sent the stranger one of my pieces.

I told her I didn’t expect a reply.

She wrote back the next day.

“Thank you for trusting me with this. You wrote a truth I think many people are afraid to say. That’s the work. That’s what being seen feels like. I see you.”

Four simple words. I see you. And yet they landed like a lifeline.

Since then, I’ve made it a mission to see others. Not just their job titles or smiles or curated Instagram lives. I try to see their pauses, the way their shoulders tense when certain topics come up, the jokes that come too quickly to be casual. I try to listen for the story under their story.

Because if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that so many people walk around hungry to be known—not famous, not celebrated, just known.

And the irony is: we all think we’re the only ones who feel this way.

What it means to be seen is not to be perfect, or impressive, or even understood in full. It means someone took the time to look beyond the version of you that’s easiest to digest. It means you are no longer translating yourself for the comfort of others.

It means you’ve been heard, even if your voice shook.

It means your silence, your mess, your contradictions they all have a place.

You have a place.

And you are not alone.