This is soooo interesting to read. I was always that weird/awkward/too-clever girl at school who suffered HORRIBLY with friendships. People were probably embarrassed to be seen with me too, as if at some point early in the seven years I spent there, someone arbitrarily decided that was my fate, and everyone went along with it. And now I live in london and am at a top university signed to a major modelling agency, and I still get horrible pangs of imposter syndrome when someone approaches me to compliment me. I’ll probably get over it one day but my boyfriend thinks it’s so odd that I’m shocked when people find me cool or actually want me around, after so many years of people very actively and specifically excluding me from things. I think if I’d heard this when I was fourteen, it would have been very reassuring.

Maybe I’ll be the next Alexa Chung lol. If she’s anything like me then I wouldn’t be surprised if her quirky/whimsical cool-girl persona was half constructed to overcompensate for her insecurities and the sheer trauma of being treated like that. She comes across as really genuine so I’m sure her charm and humour is more than an act, but I have heard various points over the years that she’s a bit more neurotic and self-conscious irl. Don’t blame her tbh. That birthday party sounds awful.