As a kid, you go to school hoping that you'll be able to make friends right away, with a lot of people. That's how it worked in kindergarten — you wanted to be friends with everyone.

For me, I quickly realized this was not going to be my reality. It wasn't just the normal outcast child in a small town scenario — I knew I wouldn't be able to talk to people the way they talked to each other. It took me a long time to realize that the reason I wasn't making friends was because of being a private person.

I did learn how to make friends when I got older. I have a lot of friends now, even. Having friendships as a private person is difficult when you don't know how to deal with it. You have to find other things to talk about besides yourself, besides your problems, and hope that the subject of conversation doesn't get boring.

I like being a private person.

I like being able to keep most of my life to myself. Not everyone has to know what I'm doing or when or how. I like having parts of myself that are only known to myself. I don't like having people know what I'm doing or thinking all of the time, and it's nice to keep parts of myself to myself.

So, to my fellow private people out there, keep being you. You don't have to open up to every single person you want to be friends with. You're allowed to keep parts to yourself. There's no reason to let people know everything about yourself, you've gotta keep a little bit of yourself for only yourself.

Not everyone deserves to know all of your secrets.