When I was in the first grade, all of my classmates began pairing off and “dating” in that innocent, elementary school way that young children “date,” consisting primarily of sweaty hand-holding and pushing each other on the swings at the playground. It always began the same: a girl would whisper to one of her friends how she thought this or that boy was cute, the friend would deliver that vital information to one of the crush's friends, and his friend would bring the news to him. From there, the boy in question would make the critical decision to either begin a deep, committed, relationship, or continue in life as a bachelor.

I wanted no part of the process.

I would stand at the very top of the jungle gym on that aforementioned playground, staring down at the couples and wondering why I wasn't interested in their games. Why couldn't I just pick one of the boys and get it over with? If I did, then I could be down there having fun like everyone else. However, I just couldn't. For some reason, I could not muster the willpower to tell any of my friends that I liked Joe or Jim or Jeff, because I knew that saying I liked any of those boys just wasn't true, and if it isn't true then it's a lie, and telling lies is wrong. So, though I refrained from participating in their game, I still watched how everyone else played.

Watching started to take a toll. Eventually I couldn’t stomach it anymore. As much as I wanted to take part, I knew that I never could and that fact hardened my heart against my classmates. Whenever I imagined myself in any sort of relationship, it was with another girl. But that was just wrong! I could never date a girl because girls only dated boys, and I definitely wasn't a boy. So there really wasn't anything left for me to do but sit, stoic and stone cold, staring at the students that just didn't have the same setbacks that I did. And I hated them for it.

Not many people reach their breaking point in the fourth grade, but somehow I managed. With a bowed head, I roughly grabbed my lunch from the cafeteria line, slammed my tray down on the table, and threw myself into a seat. My friends clustered around me, clucking about the cutest kids in their classes and who they think will ask them to the dance that weekend. I didn't think my eyes could roll farther back in my head. Didn’t they ever have better things to worry about? With their long straight hair, closets full of Aeropostale, and incessant gossiping about boys, these girls were pretty much the target audience of Seventeen magazine. We weren’t even ten yet! I couldn't take it much longer.
My reverie was abruptly broken off when the hot topic of my lunch table that day (who was better looking, Charles or Sean?) veered off into a fiery debate. I heaved a sigh. Picking up my lunch tray, I started to stalk off from the table.
“Where are you going, Lyss?” one of my friends asked as she carefully picked at her nails.
“Throwing out your trash? I'll come with!” chirped another.
“No, it’s fine. I just can't stand to be around you guys anymore.” With that, I dumped my half eaten lunch in the trash and walked straight out the cafeteria doors. Those girls may have been the only friends I had known since kindergarten, but they just weren't the right fit for me.

Maybe that was because no one was. I kept to myself from then on because I knew that I would never find the people I was looking for. Every time I would try to relate to one of my classmates, it only ended in disappointment and the bitter reality that no one else felt the same way I did. I was just different. I withdrew from my peers and wasted countless hours on the Internet, instead. If I couldn't find my niche in school, maybe I could find it online, I thought. And I did. I was finally finding people who knew what I was going through – it was like my world hadn't just opened, but exploded all around me so that I was immersed in this discovery. For the first time I had friends that I could rely on and relate to. For the first time, I didn't feel like a freak.

However, with these new friends came some self-discovery, too. I finally knew why I felt so divergent from everyone else. A word that I used to only know as a slur slung by the immature, grunting beasts on the back of my school bus, was now a word that I could identify with: gay. It felt odd to say it at first. I was gay. Feelings of embarrassment and effervescent excitement crashed over me in alternating waves. “What would people think if they knew?” was a question that often crossed my mind. Slowly, I tried to replace it with a different one: Who cares?

But indifference does not always come easily. Who cares what people think? Who cares if they like me or don't like me? You do, said the little voice in the back of my mind. Instead, I wore alternating masks of apathy and resentment because as much as I told myself that the opinions of my classmates didn't matter, the thought of them finding out about who I was terrified me. I distanced myself from my peers and lashed out at them until, eventually, no one bothered to ask what was wrong. I didn’t have to be scared of them if they were afraid of me.
I didn’t expect to fit in in high school, either. I figured that I would come into my own during college, if I ever made it that far, and that high school would be just as torturous as middle school was before that. I was wrong. The first day of seventh grade, the girl next to me, Danielle, strikes up a conversation. Questions immediately started blaring in my mind. Why was she talking to me? Reflexively, I assumed the worst. But Danielle didn’t care about the hardass facade that I had picked out for myself since the fourth grade. She included me in her group of friends and, for the first time in my life, I felt a sense of belonging. My new friends proved to be such an accepting, diverse group of people who accepted me for who I was and encouraged me to be my truest self. They gave me that final push to stop caring about what others may or may not think. They instilled in me how to be comfortable with who I was, and how important it is to surround myself with the right people. And if anyone doesn’t like that, then who cares?