Growing up in a small town can be difficult, everyone knows everyone; knows their secrets, knows their family life, or at least thinks that they do. Many people feel the urge to keep their personal lives a secret from their peers, scared of what retribution may come if they share something that others think is a negative quality.
You tell one person something and suddenly the whole school knows because word travels fast and rumors travel even faster. Voicing any type of opinion or interest is especially hazardous if it goes outside the realms of the socially accepted. If you embrace what makes you different, ignore the ideals of society, then society will turn its back on you. Those who are different often make up the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Just because somebody may not think and behave the exact same way that you do, does not make them any less of a person. They have feelings and they have brains, it does not go unnoticed to them the way that you treat them or the way that you ignore them or the way that you just so happen to forget about them.
Stop caring what people think about you. You let their thoughts of you control what you do, you hide your passions and interests because you think that other people will think you’re weird or you’re afraid of what nasty things they will say. But, in reality, this is high school and nothing you do is going to matter in a few days because we’re all too busy stressing over our next exam to care if you do something “uncool.”
No matter where your place is on the social hierarchy, it doesn’t give you an excuse to exclude the people above or below you. We’re all teenagers trying to get through high school, we all have things in our lives that nobody could possibly understand. We are all people, none alike another. Our differences should unite us, not force us apart, because our differences are what make us, “us.”