Recently, in a class I am taking on feature writing, we were paired up and asked to write a profile on our partner. At the end of the interviews, we had to raise our hands and share the most interesting thing we had learned. You’ve all done this before – probably at least once a year since first grade. Anyway, finally the professor’s eyes land on my duo.

“This is Rebecca,” my partner started cheerfully. “And she played soccer here at BU!”

I was horrified. While the statement she made is completely true, please note the past tense. I did play soccer here, but I do not play soccer anymore. Her words strike a particular chord within my soul; they spark my mind to consider something that I have been pondering since November.

Although I may be forgetting a counter example, I cannot remember a time when I played this getting-to-know-you game in which my partner did not say nearly the same thing.

“Hi. This is Rebecca. Um, she’s played soccer since she was …”

‘Okay. Well. This is Rebecca, and she just got back from ____ where she was playing soccer.”

But in this most recent reenactment of this recurring scene in my life, I tried to minimize my athletic involvement, even to the point of sounding like I had very little to do besides work and school while at BU. I thought I was in the clear until my partner asked a question in which I could no longer avoid using soccer in the response.

“Why did you come to BU?”

“Well. I wanted to move away from the Midwest. I wanted to be in a city and near a coast. I was attracted to the academics of the school … and…”

I swallowed hard and looked away.

“… and … Iplayedsoccerheretoo.”

Despite my efforts, she heard my last words. For the next few minutes, she asked about that experience until our professor warned us about time. Then, she returned to her list of questions, much to my relief. But the damage was done. The truth: I had little time for anything besides work (an on-campus tutoring job that I did not have time for until my junior year) and school because all the rest of my time was spent playing soccer or training for soccer or traveling for soccer.

And so we return to sharing time, and my partner declares to the class that the most interesting thing about Rebecca is that she played soccer at BU. My mind races ahead. I see myself introduced in graduate school and later at office ice breakers, even at casual parties:

“This is Rebecca. She used to play soccer in college.”

Do you see my concern now? Is it possible that the most interesting thing about me is something I no longer am or do? The thought is a bit staggering. It’s not that I don’t think playing collegiate sports is interesting. Clearly I do. I did it. But I am done. I am finished. No regrets and only beautiful memories, but should a memory or a set of memories I have be the most interesting thing about me?

I am consoled by a few thoughts. My partner and I only spoke for a few minutes. Aside from school and future plans, of which most in the class were the same or similar and my parents’ divorce, somehow, my soccer experience ended up being the focus of our discussion, after she found out it existed.

Then, what is interesting about me? I’m not even the only Rebecca Beyer. There is a fifth grade girl with the same name in a town in Connecticut. After she saw my name in a clipping (about soccer) in a newspaper, she wrote me a letter.

But if I am to write a column, and it seems that I am, there must be something I still do or am to make me interesting to you. I am reminded suddenly of something my mom said when asked what was unique about me for an assignment my old roommate did. I smile now because she did not say:

“My daughter is unique because she plays soccer.”

Instead, my mom answered:

“Rebecca is unique in that she is mostly interested in the uniqueness of those around her.”

And if I am to write a column, and it seems that I am, what might make me interesting to you is that I love to see the world and the people in it as interesting, and I love to attempt to put what that is into words. If I can share those ideas here, then the game changes. It’s not “getting to know you,” which I just played here, but “getting to know the world,” in which we are all players – and damn good ones.

Rebecca Beyer, a senior in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press.