All alone in a faceless crowd

Oh, Hanson. How your 1997 lyrics still speak to me, long after my awkward 11-year-old inadequacy feelings:

When you live in a cookie-cutter world, being different is a sin
So you don't stand out, but you don't fit in
Weird

Listening to these lyrics, I'm shifting my perspective away from the mere feelings of social anxieties that every teenager went through, and more toward the present conundrums I'm facing as a twentysomething:

I'm too liberal to be taken seriously among my staunchly conservative friends. I have too conservative a mindset to be valued by my liberal friends.

I don't drink as much as most adults I know (by any stretch of the imagination), yet I have enough of an occasional drink to be tsk-tsked at by my tee-totalling acquaintances.

I've got tremendously introverted tendencies, but I long for the social interaction with folks I care about.

I care precious little about my role in Corporate America, but I like the value of bringing home my own bacon.

I have too much of a life to devote it solely to an online presence, but I still spend way too much time social media-ing.



Look, I'm aware that everyone goes through this stuff. I just wish I didn't feel so daggoned self-contradictory. Anyone else?