All the things I've been criticized for are exactly the things that have kept me alive in this pandemic: Being an introvert, being bookish, daydreaming, avoiding most holidays, enjoying solitude, not wanting sex as much as others seem to, not motivated by external validation, etc.
Even the people I love that others didn't approve of, turned out to be very good to spend so much time with in precisely this situation, because I didn't choose people for social status or looks, I chose them because they know how to have fun in any circumstance. Adventurous flexible open minded easy going souls who understand that fun is free and it's up to us to make it. People who don't need to buy expensive things to have meaningful experiences. People with imagination! Those are my people.
For a decade I had been forcing myself into playing an uncomfortable false role to appease extroverts, which meant drinking myself into the ground to entertain them and betraying myself to be "normal" in the eyes of others to avoid the annoying inevitable barrage of unwanted advice about how I should be someone different than I am. It's a relief to not feel that toxic pressure anymore. And now those same critical rigid malcontented extroverts are struggling in this new normal, so they're having even worse tantrums than before.
It feels good to be true to myself. I'm grateful to be currently walled up with someone I can just laugh with and be my weirdest silliest self with. Imagine if I had to live with, say, my dad's wife who yells all the time and demands strict conformity and hates everything and everyone. I'd way rather spend my days making dumb jokes and salsa dancing and even doing absolutely nothing, than try to impress people I don't even like.
11:27 p.m. - 2021-12-20