In the Adult World, Not Everywhere You ‘Fit’ is Where You Belong
Losing myself in a “Geek’s World”
While most people had their awkward phase of trying to fit in during their teens, I had mine in my early adult years.
In my first job as an actor, I was surrounded by the geek community.
Nothing wrong with that, but I myself wasn’t one. Sure I liked Iron Man (who doesn’t?) and heck yeah I’d watch the newest Marvel film, but that was about it.
With this new group of friends, I became exposed to a lot of different topics/activities I normally wouldn’t have gravitated to. Being an “I’ll try anything once!” type of person, I welcomed the new experiences.
However as the months went by, with all their references to the shows they loved and the countless inside jokes relating to their fandoms, most of the time — correction, a lot of the time, I couldn’t relate to their conversations.
It was as if they had this “language of their own” that I couldn’t speak. More times than I can count, I was the odd man out.
Like most people at their job, my co-workers were my social life. This wasn’t a school where I had close friends outside of class, nor was there some club where I could meet others who shared my interests.
Fast forward two years later, I learned that I really should have done some things once…
Turns Out There’s Such a Thing as Being “too open”
Here are some of the choices I made, and my takeaways looking back:
good ‘try’: opening myself to tv shows I had never seen bad decision: continuing to watch more of a show I wasn’t that interested in, as a form of “socializing” with friends
good ‘try’: playing D&D(Dungeons & Dragons) bad decision: attending that 5th D&D session ’cause “Maybe this time I’ll really get into it.”
good ‘try’: going out of my way to find interesting television shows to watch (when I’m not much of a tv/Netflix person to begin with) bad decision (and this one was the worst): when there wasn’t anything I found compelling enough to watch, I’d then mentally start beating myself up over not having anything “geek-relatable” to talk about
Welcome to “The Dark Side”
Before I knew it, a huge part of me was now buried under countless hours of shows or movies watched that I could give two shits about today.
But the worse part wasn’t that.
We’ve all wasted hours of our lives doing activities that were lackluster.
The worst part was how I started to see myself…
Flashback: I was never necessarily the most popular. That never bothered me though. As long as I had one or a couple of very close friends, I was good.
But over 2 years of only feeling and seeing how different I was from everybody else — no matter how hard I tried “to be more like them”, I soon started to dislike myself for everything that I interested in.
I started to think how “lame” it was that I was passionate about self-improvement and how “uninteresting” it was that I was fascinated by deep dives into psychology, versus movie plots and storylines.
Eventually I began to question if I was even great company to begin with.
My mind then took a darker turn… I really began to believe that there must be something wrong with me…
Many days I felt worthless and alone.
I don’t blame my friend group for all my unhappiness 2 years later.
After all, at the end of the day I still chose to engage in all these “geeky activities”.
To blame them would be taking zero accountability for my decisions. It’s important to hold ourselves responsible for the outcomes that happen in our lives — the good and the bad.
The “Light Side”
In fact, I even ended up getting pretty invested in some “geeky things”.
I’m happy I discovered some fun games. My heart broke when the Death Star (from Star Wars) was destroyed (yes I was sad for the death of a galactic superweapon), and I made some friends who are still very dear to my heart until now.
Realizing I was Wrong in Questioning My Self Worth
In those 2 years I visited old friends (in another country) and found myself at ease once again being back in the presence of those closest to me.
The conversations weren’t forced. There was barely any talk of shows or movies. We just happily talked for hours about our life experiences.
I was happy again.
After a lot more self-reflection, and countless conversations with my friends who reassured me that there wasn’t anything wrong with me and my interests, I knew I needed to make a change.
Breaking Away From The Crowd
My life didn’t make a complete 180 upon this realization.
It took time like all things.
Decision by decision, I started to say “No.” more often to the activities I wasn’t that into, and slowly I began to say “Yes!” once more to all the things that truly made my heart sing.
Now these people were still a part of my life, so I learned how to create boundaries moving forward with my friendships with them:
- If I felt like I couldn’t contribute to their “geeky” conversation, instead of sitting there like a sponge trying to open myself up to “all things geeky” (over 2 years of that was more than enough), I would casually leave the room to do my own thing.
- I stopped hanging out with some of these friends altogether. Even if it meant I was “alone”, I used that time to dive back into my own interests.
There was nothing wrong with how they lived their lives, but it just wasn’t the kind of life for me.
The Journey Back to Myself
The following were ways that really made a difference in me reconnecting with myself:
- I made an effort to branch out and hangout with people who I felt a more natural connection with. People who shared my interests.
- I dived back deep (with nerdy vigor!) into all the topics that I was deeply passionate about.
- I kept in touch with my friends abroad who when I talked to them, felt like I was being my most authentic self.
- I searched for similar-minded people online — this helped a lot!
One person online that really felt like a light in my journey back to myself was Gala Darling who would share photos with quotes like,
“If it’s not a hell yeah! It’s a hell no!”
1 Year and a Half Later
Today because of a lot of intentional growth and reflection, I’m much happier and in a much better headspace.
I admit, there were times when I would look back and regret how much time I tried forcing myself to be someone I wasn’t. I’m happy to say that that is no longer the case.
I’ve finally realized that had it not been for losing myself for so long… Then I wouldn’t have gained this incredibly deep and solid sense of self that I have today.
As for this group of friends, I didn’t cut these people out of my life entirely.
They are still my friends and, “Hell no!” am I going to miss our monthly Bad Movie Night!