During my first day at The School of The New York Times Summer Academy, I was paired with a classmate I had never met before. After interviewing each other about our lives, interests, and goals, we were asked to write a short personality profile. This piece is the result of that conversation: an attempt to look beyond basic facts and capture the contradictions and small details that make someone who they are.

At the short age of 17, Claire has managed to develop a certain level of a quality that many don’t achieve even in their fifties. Claire has somehow shown up to be the friend who knows what to say, stays calm and advises others to make a different situation feel slightly less hard than what they thought it was. 

Emotional Intelligence they call it. 

However, for Claire it comes out naturally. Her friends come up to her when they need advice, because they know she’ll know what to do or at least what to say. Claire is the person that likes being there for everyone else, perhaps someday she’d like to become a therapist. She likes being there, she is everyone’s Claire. Despite how close or not someone is to her, She’s Claire, and she’ll be there

But being everyone else’s Claire comes with a question she did to herself while talking to me:

Where ‘s My Claire?

A mix of a stifled chuckle and a questioning look, followed by a slight shake of the head as she reminds herself that she already knows the answer. Claire reminds herself that she knows how to guide people through different situations, she actually knows how to handle hers too, however there’s a small part inside of her that wishes that she would have to figure that on her own but someone else could simply tell her what to do. 

There is something really interesting in being someone who can help others, but acknowledging that you would like to be helped too. Even knowing that she is capable of handling situations on her own doesn’t necessarily mean that you always want to do it alone. 

Claire is 17, and lives just outside Chicago, in river forest  She has a family of 4, her brother Ian, her parents and Lucy, the family’s Bernedoodle. Claire is a big family person, and is especially close with her dad. But just wait until you hear what’s outside her 4 home walls. Her world becomes quickly spreaded: Big high school.  tennis, ballet, teaching, volunteering, occasionally drawing, fantasy books and all those who turn to her for support. She’s a busy person, but there’s much more to her than that. 

Claire is ambitious and hardworking, but also the kind of person that does not want seriousness to consume every part of her life. In some way, teaching to smaller girls in her ballet community has taught her to slow down, to have fun and remember that sometimes what feels overwhelmingly serious in one moment is not as deep as it seems. 

But here’s the thing I learned in just 20 minutes of knowing her, Claire is much more than the emotionally intelligent friend with all the right answers. Claire loves to laugh, and loves to love. She’s one of the friendliest girls you’d have the chance to meet. She enjoys being surrounded by people but sometimes even after all that socializing and being there, she needs some time for herself.