Hello there. I am a 19 year-old college sophomore with decent grades and a loving boyfriend. This may seem like a dream to a lot of girls, but, as my parents used to tell me, behind every pretty face there could be an ugly past or present. What I mean by that is, there are battles I fight daily that few people know about, one of which is the fact that I am an outcast.

Ever since grade school, I knew I was different from other girls, and even other kids in general. I was terrible at sports, asked for books on my birthdays, and got invited to fewer than 3 birthday parties a year. I was not popular. When asked if I had a lot of friends in the younger grades, I was used to saying yes, since everyone was friends with everyone in preschool. But as I grew older and my interests began to clash with those of my classmates, I soon began to have 2 maybe 3 friends for most of my elementary school years. At times, even those friends would get invited to the "cool" girl's playdates and slumber parties, while I didn't. And the following Monday, I would have to hide my sadness as they told me about it. "Maybe they forgot me", I told myself, trying to make myself feel better. Or maybe I just wasn't cool enough, or good enough at volleyball, or one of them didn't like me. Those answers I will never know. But, as an 8 year-old with glasses and chicken legs, who was one of the slowest at field days, and couldn't even hit a volleyball, it was easy to feel insecure. I wasn't like them, and I didn't understand why.

As I got to middle school and moved to Texas, I made the mistake of taking my outcast personality to a new level. I was the one who was rude and didn't even try to make friends. But then as a junior in high school, when I finally tried, I was treated like an outcast once again. One of my only two god friends hadn't invited me to her party, because I wasn't "fun" enough. The tears ran down my face as I tried to go to sleep. It was then that I decided I would always be an outcast, because that is just who I was. I wasn't the girl who got invited to parties, or won leadership awards at school. And now, I've learned to be just a little bit more okay with it.

As I finished my first year of college, I realized that changing who I was and what I liked to do was not going to bring me any more or less friends. I know that when the right group wants to come into my life and accept me, they will. As I am still in college, where partying and hooking up are still a big deal, I will still remain an outcast for a little while longer. But that is okay. Because there is nothing wrong with being different.