When did you first realise that you felt like you were different? The first time that you felt like you didn’t fit in?

I have been sitting here for hours trying to pinpoint that memory for myself. It is buried deep in my subconscious somewhere. I just can’t seem to pluck it out from obscurity. 

It’s like trying to grab hold of a loose kite string in 30 mile an hour winds or missing the train as you get to the platform. 

Just. Really. Fucking. Annoying.

It is evading me and I can’t help but wonder if it is some younger part of me that thinks that it is protecting me. 

Or. Maybe it isn’t one specific memory, maybe it’s that awkwardness doesn’t actually have a ‘first moment’ and connecting with others is just a constant loose kite string or a train you keep missing as an awkward person. 

It isn’t like I don’t have awkward memories as a child. There is a mahoosive plippin’ Rolodex.

Some are more prominent than others. More cutting. More isolating. 

I remember being about 9 and a new girl had arrived at the beginning of term. 

She didn’t know anyone. She didn’t even live in our town. 

I was already aware that I felt different and had been bullied the year before. I could see the discomfort in her, of feeling ‘other’ and wanted to make her feel comfortable. 

So, I did something completely out of my comfort zone and befriended her and we actually got on really well.

So, after a few weeks, as we were leaving the classroom at the end of the day, I plucked up the courage to ask her if she wanted to have a sleepover.

Some other kids overheard and immediately mocked me saying I was weird and it was weird that I’d ask and why would she even want to do that and that it was ‘gay’. 

Back then ‘gay’ wasn’t really in our vocabulary, until we got to secondary school, where apparently everything was ‘gay’.

At that time, I didn’t really understand what was being said. I was just very aware that they were trying to make me feel ashamed of it. 

The way I’d viewed it was that I was just finally making a friend and a play date was the next natural progression within the friendship. 

I mean…

Kids are perceptive because I’m gay as fuck.

But… that’s still a core memory I guess, of feeling different. 

This thread followed me, not in exactly the same way perhaps but the feeling stayed the same. Of otherness, displacement, when just trying to belong.

When I was finishing my degree, researching my independent project, myself and another student were meeting our supervisor and we all agreed to meet for coffee beforehand.

As anxious as I was with a more intimate conversation as opposed to in class, I answered a few questions.

However, I spent the rest of the conversation silent as the other student was pursued more with questioning. 

Yet, in my overthinking, I got the feeling that I was just there because it was convenient, because my meeting was after hers. Not because I was wanted for the conversation. 

We then shared the time slot to discuss our projects and I felt like I’d encroached on the other students' time. Like I didn’t slot into that moment but I was just being myself. My awkward fucking self. 

Maybe it is because the topics both of us had chosen were based on deeply personal experiences we had each had. 

Sharing the slot felt like we were encroaching on each other's allotted time - like a breach of privacy and it felt exposing, to me at least. 

It could be lots of things I suppose. Timing? or how exposing it feels whenever someone is sitting directly in front of you?

Come to think of it, this post is hella exposing. Ah well. Fuck it.  

Looking back at both of these, I was grabbing hold of the kite string and stepping foot on the train.  

Both times I was trying to reach out honestly and both times it didn’t go smoothly. The awkwardness felt the same, even years apart. 

And that’s OK. 

If you’ve felt like this or feel like this, don't be afraid to hold onto the kite and step foot on the train. 

Sometimes we let go and sometimes we miss it. 

Try anyway. 

X