#so much this
The thing that people trying to tell me I’m “cringe” don’t get is like…
I know that.
My entire self-identity is based on having basically everyone my own age for my entire childhood treat me as an incredibly embarrassing misfit, and having internalized that there was nothing I could ever do to make myself less cringetastic.
So all my later friendships and social acceptance and self-worth were based upon the premise that I am weird and embarassing as hell, but, there are certain people, subcultures, and social situations where this isn’t necessarily a barrier to acceptance and fellow-feeling, and also, people who ostracize others for harmless eccentricity are giant assholes. I purged most of my trauma by going to fast food restaurants in medieval clothing during SCA events and internalizing that no matter how weird I am, I still have basic human rights and deserve to exist in social spaces.
So if you want me to change you have to actually tell me what I’m doing that you don’t like, because when I ask myself hypotheticals like, “What would a person find cringey about me?” or even, on my bad mental health days, “Why would someone strongly dislike me?” the answer is, “Idk, everything I do, say, and am? Which is not something I can change. You’ll have to give me more specifics if you want me to do anything about it.”
It’s one of those things where like… downside, I’m horrifically scarred inside. Upside, it makes me resistant to some forms of peer pressure!
