I am a snoop. I don’t know how it started. When I was around 8 or 9, I snooped around the house to find our Christmas presents. I look over the shoulders of family and friends as they’re texting others even if the conversation isn’t interesting. I just want to know what’s going on. I can’t help myself. I always just figured it was kind of… normal? 

So, one year, when I was visiting my grandma’s house over the summer, or maybe winter break, and she had left her phone open, I snooped. I’m not proud of it. But it happened. I would have given up fairly quickly, if I didn’t notice a recent text conversation she had with my mom… about ME. 

How could I say no to that? I mean, seriously! I mean, if you were in my shoes, and you learn your mom and your grandma are talking about you in their text messages, wouldn’t you want to know what they had said?  So, I dug deeper. I opened their messages. They said I seemed sad and quiet visiting with my cousins. They said that they thought I was like this because my cousins favored my brother over me.

HA! I basically scoffed reading their messages. I wasn’t quiet because I was sad, I was just quiet. That’s how I was. It wasn’t anyone's fault, just mine. Though, I knew their messages were at least half-true. My cousins DID treat my brother like the second coming of Jesus Christ. I mean, they laughed at everything he did, even if he was just BREATHING! He wasn’t that funny.

Did they like him more than me? I mean, probably, right? He was more talkative, he was funnier, and he was closer to their age. At best, I was 2 years younger than the 3 of them, and with my oldest cousin, I was 5 years younger. I couldn’t really relate to their struggles at school, or their relationship problems. I stuck out like a sore thumb.

Deep down, I knew that even though I was the favored sibling around parents and adults, my brother was way more social and fun to be around for anyone our age. 

For a while, I brought this weird awareness of people favoring my brother around with me. Around the same time, I was entering a new high school. Most of my friends from middle school I had known from elementary, but at this new school, I knew no one. There were a total of 3 people in my grade who came from my middle school. It had been a long, long time since I actively tried to make new friends from scratch. I didn’t know how to treat these new friendships. They were gentle– fragile.

Eventually, I kind of developed an aversion- a fear- of any of my friends meeting my brother. It wasn’t that I didn’t think they’d get along with him, I thought maybe they’d get along too well. I thought maybe, just maybe, they’d like him more than me. 

But recently, I’ve started to reassure myself that this isn’t the case. I have good relationships with my friends, I’ve known them for four years now. I don’t get nervous when my friends talk to my brother. I know my friends like me for me, and not for any other reason.

I visited my cousins again, a couple weeks back, for my cousin’s bridal shower. My brother didn’t come with us, as he was busy with work. I had a lot of fun there, and I noticed that more often than not, they were talking to me. The people I thought favored my brother more actually didn’t. They were talking to me and they seemed to want to talk to me. I realized it was all in my head. While I’m still sure that my brother is the more talkative one of us two, that doesn’t mean they like spending time with me any less.