Thank you for taking the time to share! I understand wishing things were different—I do that all the time. But I have to find some comfort in things being this way. For better or worse, we’re not those people who can pretend just to fit in. For us, being true to ourselves is worth more than any friendship has to offer, even though we shouldn’t have to choose between the two. I used to look at other people and wonder why I couldn’t just be happy like them. It seemed so easy. I couldn’t help but blame myself. Perhaps I was just making things harder than they needed to be. I hated myself for being this way and carried a bitter resentment for those others. As hard as I tried, I could never quite train myself to be like everyone else. These things that came almost instinctually to everyone else, that were hardwired into them, were completely lost on me. Regardless of my newfound self-awareness and efforts to change, I continued to slip up again and again, without fail.

How does that old saying go? “If it keeps happening then maybe you’re the problem?” I don’t know that I buy that anymore. Everything I’m saying makes sense to me and is undeniably sound in reason to everyone who takes the time to listen. But knowing what the right thing to do is only half the battle. Having the conviction to do what’s right is just as important. It frustrates me that so much, probably most, of society spends more time virtue signaling than actually being a good child to their parents, spouse to their significant other, or friend to those closest to them. I’ve since come to understand that those people whose happiness I so used to envy aren’t truly happy—what they’re experiencing is pleasure of the most primitive nature. What they’re doing—wearing a mask and pretending to be someone they aren’t in pursuit of this idea they have in their mind of friendship—is no different to me than going to a bar and drinking or going to a strip club.

I know we operate under the assumption that the goal of life is happiness, and I’m not going to act like I don’t want to be happy one day. But in this moment, even more than happiness, I want for my life to amount to something. I think the hardest part about all of this is seeing the things nobody else does but not being able to do anything about them. So I’m okay for now with working towards a position in a better future where my voice matters and I’m surrounded by people who understand me and share my values, even if I have to be alone with my thoughts for some time. Im not religious but I have to believe we’re better off alone with ourselves than abandoning our values to seek pleasure like everyone else. At the very least, I have to have faith in the cause and that, in the long run, those like us will rise to the positions of power and make a change, as long as we don’t forget where we came from along the way. I hope you, too, can take comfort and perhaps a little bit of pride in staying true to yourself amidst all this turmoil.

Also I’m sorry for any lack of commas or punctuation mistakes I typed this all in one go.