u/SherlockH-221B

as people say you shouldn't see yourself in fictional characters, and maybe theyare right. but every now and then, someone comes along who thinks the way you do, says the things you've only ever admitted to yourself, and carries loneliness so naturally that it almost looks like part of their personality, and for me, it is hikigaya.

not because i think iam as clever as he is, or because i believe my life is some anime waiting for the next episode rather it's the smaller things that stay with me. watching people instead of joining them. convincing yourself that being alone is easier than risking disappointment. pretending solitude is a preference because it's less painful than wondering if anyone would've chosen you in the first place.

but eventually then his story changes, someone notices him, someone chooses to stay, someone slowly breaks through walls he spent years convincing himself were there for a reason,

but simply tthat's where reality quietly taps me on the shoulder, his loneliness was written with an ending in mind but mine isnot, and i know fiction isn't supposed to promise anything. real life doesn't owe anyone a yukino. it doesn't owe anyone the person who looks at all the parts you've hidden away and says, "i'll stay anyway."

ig maybe that's what hurts the most, not that his story ends happily, it's that somewhere, buried beneath all the cynicism and all the excuses i've made for myself, there's still a small part of me that wonders what it would feel like to be someone's choice, and maybe that's the cruelest part of loneliness, not the silence, but continuing to hope for a voice you keep telling yourself will never call your name.

i'm a 20-year-old guy from india, with a darker skin tone, iknow that, logically skin colour shoulnt define a person's worth, ihave heard that enough times, and i genuinely want to believe i, but emotions don't always listen to logic.

for as long as i can think, ihave felt indifferent at best and insecure at worst about the way i look, it's not that i hate myself every waking moment, but it's something that's always quietly sitting in the back of my mind every time i walk into a room full of people my age, i can't help but compare myself. most of my peers seem effortlessly attractive, fair-skinned, confident, and socially comfortable. whether that's actually true or just how my mind perceives it, i don't know anymore

what i do know is that i always feel like i don't belong among them.

ihave never been a naturally social person, starting conversations feels difficult joining groups feels even harder. i constantly overthink what people think of me, and because of that, i usually choose silence ikknow people say that personality is what truly keeps people around, and i believe that's true but before anyone gets the chance to know your personality, they see your face they see how you look. sometimes it feels like i've already been judged before i've even spoken a single word.

over time, that feeling has slowly changed the way i live, i stopped attending most of my college lectures, partly because i didn't want to keep feeling invisible or out of place when i do go to college, i almost always eat alone in the cafeteriaa. watching groups of friends laugh together while i sit by myself has become strangely normala altho no one tells me to leave or treats me badly, but that doesn't stop me from feeling like i exist on the outside of everyone else's world.

the hardest part isn't even being alone it's like wondering if things would have been different if i looked different, would i have found it easier to make friends?or like would people have approached me more? or would i have been more confident instead of constantly second-guessing myself? i know there's no way to answer those questions, but they keep coming back anyway.

sometimes i wonder whether my appearance created my social anxiety, or whether my social anxiety simply makes me blame my appearance maybe it's a mix of both but i honestly dunno know anymore.

i don't expect strangers to solve this for me, and m not writing this because i'm looking for pity its just i wanted to put into words something that i have been carrying around for years,keeping it all inside has become exhausting, and for once i wanted to be honest about how i've been feeling.

idont really know what i expect from posting this, maybe nothing at all but if you took the time to read it, thank you.