Out of the many skills I’ve failed to refine during my life – board games, doing the laundry on time, volleyball – the one that stands out most is my card shuffling technique.

Unlike my desire to get better at volleyball, however, I don’t feel the nagging urge to improve this skill. Despite the continuous slide of the cards in my hands never quite measuring up to the sharp clacks of my peers’ skillful bridges, practicing has never been at the top of my list of priorities.

But I have reason for my indifference: I shuffle cards the way my family does, the way my grandmother taught me when I first learned how to play.

There’s a game in my culture called Dummy that most children learn to play when they’re old enough to know that cards exist. I was no different. For most of my childhood, spare time after dinner, on flights or on car rides, life was engulfed by Dummy.

The game derives its name from the fact that it’s the first card game children learn to play, and anyone should be able to pick it up. The rules are truly simple – resembling War but with more strategy – and this simplicity cultivated my hyperfixation.

Eventually, I squared up against experienced opponents like my parents and grandparents. As I continued to play, some let me win, and some taught me how to beat them the hard way.

I never looked beyond the imprecise back-and-forth that my family preferred to shuffle the deck with after every round. But it wasn’t the technique – or lack thereof – that was significant. It was the fact that it was something that all of us shared with each other.

In time, both our game and our shuffling embodied physical manifestations of my family – ones that I could hold in my own two hands.

Yet as I grew older, the breaks I took from picking up a deck grew as well. It wasn’t until my first year of university that I remembered the game or my juvenile shuffling. By then, my friends had repertoires of card tricks, and even a simple bridge was enough to put me to shame.

But it didn’t matter. I taught two of my newfound friends how to play the game that I had grown up with. It was one of the solidifying moments in our friendship. As I shared bits of my culture, they showed me theirs in return. Back then, it was rare for them to beat me at my own game. In return, I was always the first to lose in Egyptian Rat Slap.

My friends graduated from college this past June. The night of graduation, we sat in a circle on the floor and played Dummy, along with many other card games, until 3 a.m., just like we did when we were freshmen.

I lost just as many times as I won, and it quickly became apparent that I no longer possessed the same home-court advantage as I did two years ago. But the fact that we were all there together was enough of a win for me.

I’ve had the joy of teaching more and more of my friends my game – and experienced the added joy of rediscovering why it’s such a cultural phenomenon to this day. Across classes, clubs and even internships, I’ve had the pleasure of forming connections through sharing pieces of my culture and heritage, sloppy shuffling and all.

Every once in a while, I’ll hear someone mention how they taught their friends and family to play, and all of a sudden my childhood home is connected to a vibrant mix of communities by strings I can’t even begin to imagine.

There’s a sense of vulnerability that comes with being perceived, especially when the perception comes at a level as fundamental as your family and culture.

But as John Green wrote in his book “The Anthropocene Reviewed,” “You cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it.”

Something as simple as my vulnerability about a card game has allowed me to build beautiful college friendships and communities that I can’t imagine getting through these past four years, and even beyond that, without.

As the new school year approaches, so too do the opportunities to make more memories, form deeper connections and maybe start some new ones – as long as we allow ourselves to share in that vulnerability.

The wonder of the collegiate world is that you can shape it to be your own.

So, come fall quarter, choose to be vulnerable, and choose to experience the beauty that comes with it.

And if that beauty comes in the form of learning a new card game, feel free to shuffle on over. I’d be happy to deal you in.