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what could have been

I dunno if the small net is quite the place to went, but it's the only place I trust to not betray my privacy, so there goes.

I do wonder: would it be different, if I grew up knowing who and what I liked? If it didn't take me till twenty-something to realise my attraction to the same gender and the non-conforming expression of my own? Would it be better if I could recognise weird obsessions with certain friends as crushes they definitely were? Would I have more chances at happiness if I knew I'll never "grow into it" and start liking who I'm supposed to like? If I looked for crushes and attractions appropriate for me? If I got at least one awkward teenage relationship, even if secret and childish, instead of being well in my middle twenties with no experience and therefore being stuck in a bachelor mindset and not even knowing how to or where to look ('cause apps don't work for me, and night clubs are definitely not my thing, nor are there any that are reachable).

Or would I still be the same, just bullied more? My country is very conservative, my school was even more so. "Gay" and all flavors of it were thrown around as slurs all day long. And we didn't have much proper internet recourses on the topic at the time. I would probably be a weirdo, not that I wasn't enough of one already. Instead of an awkward school relationship I'd probably get even more rejected by my classmates. Like a lot of people were, and are even nowadays.

It just feels like I missed so much of my life in that regard. These teenage romcoms or even cartoons that are getting filmed now make me tear up 'cause I'm far, far past school or college, and however many friends I make nowadays, it never clicks with anyone...or almost clicks with someone who's straight. And even if I meet someone, which I hope I eventually will, it surely won't be the teenage level of emotions. Well, maybe for me it will, but that's another scary thing: how can I ever match the level of someone who most likely had a lot of experience by this point in life? Some people have three children by this age. And I have...unwritten book ideas...?

Romance isn't the end goal of this life, at least I never believed it is, but it sure feels lonely sometimes. More and more so as the time passes. It's hard to feel hopeful (or desirable) when it just never happens for you in the slightest, not even a glimpse.

Well, at the very least, I guess, I have no exes to drunk-call.