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When I left college at eighteen, there was a party at a nightclub in town. I don’t know what I was expecting when my mate said we should attend. Not a night of clubbing, that’s for sure. A last opportunity to say bye to old friends, perhaps: to catch up, exchange notes, wish each other well. But nope: it turned out I was just seriously naive, yet again.

Twice, my friends tried to pair me up with the same girl, who both times laughed in my face. The first time, because a friend of my best mate was interested in her friend and wanted to offload the other on me. The second time, because her friend had gone off with that guy and had left her all alone. Seeing her, my best mate thought we two losers could keep each other company.

But that was never going to happen, for she had standards and I was just a geek. And anyway, I knew that girl already, because she lived around the corner from me, out in the suburbs. I imagined her father was a doctor, because that’s what most people who lived on that road were. Who knows, perhaps he was the doctor I met on hajj a decade later, who also lived around the corner from me.

That party was a night of surprises. Until then, it had honestly never occurred to me the path my mates were walking. Others could legitimately ask how I could have been so naive. But context: the totality of my social life outside college in those days was limited to attending a Christian youth club, run by my mum, and attending orchestra practice one evening a week, where I comprised my role as oboist famed for dying cow impressions. I had no other social life whatsoever.

That evening was probably the first time I realised both that my friends did not know me at all, and I did not know them either. Our worlds couldn’t have been further apart. But by then it was too late, for that was the end of our time in each other’s company. Though I did see the one I called my best mate a few times over the months that followed, we would eventually go our separate ways, our paths never to cross again.

If my mate had actually known me, he would have thought it idiotic trying to introduce me to a girl in that manner. I was quiet at the best of times, without that thumping bass. But I suppose all young men back then thought all young men were exactly alike, seeking the exact same thing. Perhaps not. I was seeking companionship and love, not instant gratification — always fearful of my family’s censure for falling short of their exacting standards.

Perhaps that fear served me well. So too being a geek and a nerd, so easily derided. I’m glad I never got swept along with my friends, and held fast to those principles, even as an agnostic. I don’t mind admitting that when I married my wife at twenty-four, she was my first romantic partner. I’m neither ashamed nor embarrassed that until we met, I was just an exceedingly patient man, awaiting my turn. It worked out well for us, despite my family’s initial misgivings.

It’s very difficult being a young man. The peer pressure is immense. It’s difficult to stand firm, and hold fast. Nobody wants to be considered a geek or a nerd. Nobody wants to be uncool, pushed out, alone. I didn’t either, but I suppose I had one thing I should be grateful for: my biology. Even if I had tried to play along and fulfil that role, I would never have been able to anyway. No matter how hard I tried, my form preceded me, undermining every attempt to reinvent myself as some kind of cool kid. Alhamdulilah for that.

If you have young men in your family, you have to mentor them. Life’s going to be tough for them as they go through adolescence. The peer pressure is really going to get them down. You’re going to have to help steer them in positive directions, encouraging them to prioritise their studies, and deprioritise the need to belong. It won’t be easy at all. Understanding those pressures, you’re going to have to be there for them, through thick and thin, whatever the challenges they face.