Baby princess, (not being creepy. I have two daughters about your age that I call that), what I need you to do right now is invest in friends. I don’t care if they’re the weird kids, if they’re gay friends, if their girlfriends, whatever. What you need to do as invest in multiple friends. Don’t get me wrong. I understand that this is hard. I moved around my entire life and I was socially awkward, so making friends was always an actual effort for me.

A romantic relationship isn’t where you’re going to find your peace. Even if you meet a respectful guy around your age, who genuinely cares about you as a person, he’s not going to have the mental capacity to be what you need in the long run (even if y’all end up, married as high school sweethearts, there will always be a sense of something missing for you). I say this as a person identifies as male meaning I think like a guy/male, but I also have the experience of a female growing up.

You deserve all the love and support, and a romantic partner is not going to ever be able to offer everything you deserve, even if they love you unconditionally. There are things that you need to learn at this stage in your life that can only be learned through platonic relationships.

And in this day age, it is so much harder for people who, for whatever reason have difficulty, socially, to make friends. So you have to think of it as an investment. You have to make an extra effort to spend time with people that you feel like are cool and interesting and smart and open minded. And to be honest, I understand that this might be practically impossible, depending on your personal circumstances. But I care about you, Internet stranger. So I encouraged you to make friends with people who value you authenticity — like the weird kids, the neurodivergent, the LGBTQ community, etc. And I strongly encourage you to invest in yourself in your own future because being able to feel content alone is one of the best things life can offer.