All my life I have felt like an outsider to everyone else. Even my closest friends are nothing really like me. I've definitely always been different from everyone else, and I recently found out why.

Now, to clarify, I don't mean my physical appearance. If you were to know who I am, you'd know about me being 6"0' and 300+ lbs. I'm talking about personality traits and characteristics that seem to separate myself from other people. It's easy to say "we're all different," but sometimes it's not easy to explain why. One day I was hanging out with some friends and I just began thinking about my relationships with each of them. Then I began to wonder perhaps what it is about me that made them want to be friends with me. This was quite possibly the first time (if not, then the most recent) that I really evaluated myself as a person. I realized just how similar we all were. But, once you notice the similarities between two things, you also notice the differences.

Taking a look back through my life, there was one thing I noticed about myself that stood out more than the other traits and such. This is the one thing that makes me feel like some sort of outsider, even to my friends and family:

I don't particularly care about what other people think about me, which gives me more personality.

Now, hear me out - of course, everyone hears others' opinions and can take them into consideration at their own desire. Yes, I hear what people say, but here's the thing - I don't take it to heart. I don't feel a need to satisfy others' ideals of who or how I should be. I guess that at some point in my life I figured out that it doesn't really matter.

So, I started dressing myself how I want instead of thinking of how I can impress others through fashion. I began openly speaking my opinions without thinking of the consequences that they could bring. I was very open with myself to others because I didn't think anything of caring about how others would react. This was, of course, all within reason and with respect towards others, but still fairly unorthodox compared to my peers nonetheless.

After evaluating this and really thinking about it, I found that in learning this so quickly, I developed a personality before my surrounding friends and school mates would. There was a certain openness in being able to be who I wanted rather than who everyone else wanted that gave me characteristics that did not seem quite right to others. But now, I feel that they are all catching up to me. It feels like every day those around me become more accepting of others without trying to make them be someone else. The lesson to take from this is to just meet people, and discover who they are. You'll certainly meet some interesting people with interesting stories. But, you'll never hear them if you stray them away because you think they should be more like you.