Main Character Syndrome Might Actually Be Good for You
By Alana Hudy
Edited by Anna Kate Mereness
There’s something undeniably dramatic about putting your headphones on, walking across campus and pretending the song playing was specifically chosen for the soundtrack of your life.
Maybe the leaves are changing. Maybe you’re carrying an iced coffee. Maybe you’re walking to a class you absolutely do not want to attend. For a few minutes, though, everything feels a little more cinematic.
The internet would probably call this “main character syndrome.”
Usually, the phrase isn’t exactly a compliment. Main character syndrome describes someone who acts as if the world revolves around them and everyone else is just part of the supporting cast.
And sure, nobody wants to be the person who turns every conversation back to themselves. But what if we reclaimed just a tiny bit of main character energy?
College moves ridiculously fast. One minute, you’re figuring out where your classes are, and suddenly people are asking where you’re applying for internships, what you’re doing after graduation and where you see yourself in five years. It’s easy to spend so much time worrying about what comes next that you forget to enjoy where you are right now.
That’s where romanticizing your life comes in.
Being the main character doesn’t have to mean believing you’re more important than everyone around you. It can simply mean being more present in your own life.
Wear the outfit you’ve been saving for a “better” occasion to class. Take yourself to get coffee without waiting for someone else to come along. Sit outside when the weather is nice. Make a playlist for walking around campus. Take pictures of your friends when nobody is posing. Buy yourself flowers. Go to the event you almost skipped because no one else wanted to go.
None of these things are groundbreaking. That’s kind of the point.
We’re constantly shown highlight reels of other people’s lives. Someone is studying abroad in Italy. Someone landed their dream internship. Someone has the perfect apartment, relationship, wardrobe or morning routine. When you spend enough time watching everyone else’s best moments, your own everyday life can start to feel boring by comparison.
But most of life happens in those ordinary moments.
It’s the walk home after class when the weather is perfect. It’s sitting on your friend’s bedroom floor for two hours when you only planned to stop by for five minutes. It’s laughing so hard at dinner that you forget what the original joke was. It’s your favorite song coming on while you’re driving somewhere you’ve driven a hundred times before.
Those moments probably won’t make it into your Instagram photo dump, but someday, they might be the things you miss most.
There’s also something freeing about deciding that you don’t need an audience for your life to be interesting. You don’t have to post the coffee, the outfit or the sunset for it to count.
Romanticizing your life isn’t about making everything look perfect. It’s about actually noticing it.
So maybe main character syndrome isn’t always such a bad thing.
Obviously, the people around you aren’t background characters. They have their own stories, worries and lives happening at the same time as yours. But remembering that you are the main character of your own life might make you a little more willing to participate in it.
Take the long way home. Wear the outfit. Make the playlist. Take the picture.
Your life is already happening. You might as well pay attention to it.
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