Growing Up Isn't What They Told Me

It’s weird to think about how much you change, isn’t it? Like, everyone says high school is a crucible—a place where you're forged into…something. But looking back, I don't feel *made* so much as rearranged, bits of me shifting under the pressure of wanting to fit in. My dad always said, "Just be yourself," which is nice advice, except 'myself’ felt like a constantly evolving algorithm trying to guess what would earn the most likes at any given moment.

There was this study recently that got circulated on my Tumblr dashboard – yeah, I still use Tumblr – about how people's habits around things like alcohol change depending on how much they care about following social rules. It’s not just a straight line of "more rule-following equals less drinking," which is what I expected. The older you get, apparently, the more complicated it gets.

I remember freshman year, everyone was doing that thing—that very specific performance of nonchalance and rebellion where you had to look like you *weren't* trying to drink but also subtly signal that you were cool enough to be offered a sip. The pressure felt immense. It wasn’t about the alcohol itself, not really. It was about being seen as one of them, part of the group. My mom tried to understand, telling me she wished I'd just find something creative like painting or writing—but it wasn’t about creativity; it was about belonging.

Even now, older friends who stayed in town talk about how different it feels now. They say it’s less about proving yourself and more about genuinely enjoying a night out with people you like. There's this sense of earned freedom that comes with age – the freedom to choose not to participate without feeling judged. That feels…distant, honestly.

My dad, he grew up in a different world entirely. He doesn’t really *get* it. When Phoebe Bridgers came through Cleveland last April, I wrote about how powerful her music felt, and suddenly people were reading my blog from all over—two hundred reblogs on Tumblr alone! It was this weird validation that what I said mattered to someone beyond the small circle of people who already knew me. But he just shook his head and said, “Why do you have to write about *that*?” He doesn’t understand the craving for connection, even if it's through something as impersonal as a blog post or an online concert ticket.

It makes me wonder—is that pressure to conform inherently bad? I don't think so. Wanting to be accepted is wired into us, right? It was probably important when we were living in caves and needed to hunt together to survive. But now, "fitting in" means something different: curating a perfect online persona, knowing the right slang, wearing the approved brands. It’s exhausting.

What if ‘social attunement,’ as they called it, isn’t just about following rules? What if it's also about being attuned to *other* people—to their pain, to their joy, to what they truly need. Maybe there are those who bend the “rules” because they're paying attention in a different way. They see through the performance and choose something else instead. Something real.

I don't know if I’ll ever fully shake that feeling of wanting to be seen, wanting to belong. But maybe, just maybe, being ‘myself’ isn’t about finding a perfect formula for acceptance. Maybe it’s about figuring out what I need to ignore and what I need to pay attention to—and realizing that sometimes, the most rebellious thing you can do is simply be honest with yourself.