Growing up feeling like you never really fit in is a lot like showing up to a party where everyone else seems to have received the secret instructions except you. You spend years wondering what’s wrong with you, while quietly studying everyone else like an anthropologist observing a particularly confusing species. You try different personalities, clothes, interests, jokes, hairstyles, and occasionally even pretending to understand sports, hoping one of them will finally unlock the door to Normal People Club. Eventually, you realize you weren’t necessarily doing anything wrong—you were just trying to squeeze yourself into a space that had never been shaped quite right for you. The funny part is that, after all those years of trying to fit in, you finally discover that being slightly out of place is actually a pretty comfortable place to live.
