High school is, supposedly, the "best four years of your life." For many people, this is true, and for just as many it isn't. I belong to the latter category.

In high school, I didn't go to parties every weekend. I wasn't well-known within my class. During the first few years of it, I don't think I was known at all. I was kind of a loner, and although I pretended it was by choice, it really wasn't. I wanted to have a lot of friends, to always have plans on weekends, but I was too shy and socially anxious to really make any of that happen.

Once I started my junior year, things started to look up: I joined the varsity cheer team and became friends with my teammates. I started to become more outgoing, meeting new people, and just generally having more fun than I did my first two years.

However, I still felt like no matter what, I didn't have a set "group." It was easy to place other people in categories: athlete, nerd, theater kid, etc. But what was I? A cheerleader, yes, but I definitely didn't fit the bill for one. I was smart and took AP and Honors classes, but I wasn't really a "nerd." I wasn't in the marching band or Student Council. I didn't really know what I was.

Some might say the obvious solution here is to join more clubs and sports and figure out what I liked. But that was the thing: I couldn't figure out what it was I wanted to do. I was happy with the clubs I joined, but they didn't tell me much in terms of identity.

But by senior year, I slowly came to terms with the idea of not belonging to one single group. I believe the term now is "floater," and that's kind of exactly what I did. I had a group of a few friends that I was extremely close with, but with everyone else, I was just friendly. People knew me and (as far as I know) liked me, but I only really hung out with my close friends.

This is both a blessing and a curse. On the plus side, you're friends with everyone. It's nice to be on good terms with pretty much everyone, because it makes your high school experience more enjoyable. You're accepted with essentially everyone. But on the downside, you're not that close with anybody except your own friend group of other floaters. You go to parties or other events and you know everyone, but you don't know everyone. And sometimes that can get boring or lonely.

So, to the other floaters out there: I see you, and I feel your pain. It's difficult to find where you belong in high school when you don't really belong anywhere. But just know that once you get to college, pretty much everyone is just floating around, too.