Since I feel that I have to hide what I like and don't like (often I feel I have to pretend to love what bores me and dislike what I find enjoyable), I often don't show enthusiasm. Faking enthusiasm is exhausting after a long time. It's easier to pretend to be fairly interested by socially acceptable things I don't like, and then hide when I'm really happy or excited and into something socially not-so-acceptable. The downside is that I can never act on my enthusiasm, or if I do it has to be reigned in and tweaked so that it is 'acceptable.' If I don't, no one will like me. If I don't, I'll fail at everything.

If I quit the charade, I lose.

I sometimes have trouble getting close to new people, because I feel I should shield them from who I really am. Who I am, what I like, how I feel, it's all invalid unless it aligns with how I should be. Not much aligns like that. Who I am is strange, unusual in not-good way, off-putting, and incorrect. I am undesirable as a friend, family member, and lover. I feel that not everyone I know realizes that just yet because I hide it - but I feel they sense it, and someday will act accordingly.

I feel wrong because I don't care much about befriending new people (I'm selective about friends). But I feel that I should always be making new friends and going out with them. I shouldn't feel bored or disinterested by that. I do. It's tiring to pretend I'm not bored by it. It's stressful to lie and say I enjoy it so that I look 'right.' No one would want someone like that. So I have to hide it.

I feel I shouldn't like the things I like. I should like 'nerdy' things: I should like sports. I shouldn't like independent short stories; I should like best sellers or trendy indie stuff. I shouldn't like subtle characters; I should like the procedural plot. I shouldn't like reading; I should want to play volleyball all the time. I should be bore with the things I enjoy, and love the things that bore me. Because the way I am, and what I like, are all wrong. If people know how wrong I am, they won't want me.

I feel pressure to have many, many friend, though I hate the upkeep, especially with people I don't like that much. I feel that when I don't want to be friends with someone, it's my fault; when they don't want to be friends with me, it's my fault. I've always done something wrong. I don't have fun on outings with a lot of people I only sort of like; but I feel that it's my fault I don't like them more, my fault I'm not having more fun, and that if I wasn't so wrong it would be better, it would be right.

I feel that I am wrong or bad because I prefer my own company and the company of a few people I feel close to. I prefer to stay in rather than go out. I feel that I should be more gregarious, more outgoing, and want to be busy and with people every moment of the day. I feel that because I don't enjoy that, and that I find relaxing activities more fun, that I am perceived as deviant, pathological, lazy, and invalid.

I often feel that I'm bad or wrong in some way. Many ways. I feel that I don't fit into society the way it wants me to. I feel that I'm not smart enough, strong enough, feminine enough, masculine enough, pretty enough, accomplished enough, driven enough, thin enough, interesting enough, busy enough, sexual enough, chaste enough, moral enough, brave enough, demure enough, and that I should be more successful while trying less hard.

There's something wrong with me that I can't do all this. Everyone else can. I'm not good enough to be able to be like everyone else. I'm mostly alone in that. And for others similar to me, I shouldn't hang out with them - it will only make things for me and them worse, because then what we are will be more apparent, and it will only make things harder for us. I should hang out with the 'good' people, the people who can do all of the above. But I'm also wrong because I don't like hanging out with the people I 'should' hang out with - I find it uninteresting and stressful because I have to try to act interested. That is also wrong and should be hidden, which is exhausting to maintain. And I maintain it less and less well as I grow, because I care less and less.

I feel that people don't like me for all those reasons and more. I feel I have to hide who I am so that people don't find out, and then hate me and ostracize me.

This is a space for me to vent. None of this is serious (not to me), none of it is life-altering. It's a place for me to blow off steam and verbalize what I'm thinking and feeling.

It is okay for me to feel the way I feel.

It is okay for me to think the way I think.

It is okay for me to talk about it here.

I'd like to note that overall, I'm an optimistic person. I'm not bubbly; I'm very even-keeled. I'm generally positive, but not exuberant. I never stay down long, I always anticipate the light at the end of the tunnel even with difficult things, and I expect and work for a mostly calm, happy, content existence. But I do have my darker, sadder moments. And as someone who tends to guard those moments, I figured this would be the best place to vent them.