*coughs* strangle hug--- is too--- tightt :D appreciate the intent though! And haha yeah um no it's my fault that this thread has been inactive and I will fight you over this (just kidding don't worry I try to avoid violence when I can o_O) (well, I mostly try, Ig, because I literally just mentioned fighting) (btw have you ever read My Weird School? Violence? You mean violins?? :DD *plays a beautiful violin solo while feeling the music flow out of my heart and soul* *except I'm actually playing on a cello because ahem I do not play violin I play cello* *like Zoot in Cricket magazine!* *man, that got off topic quick* *wait I think it's more grammatically correct to say "got off topic quick" right but then why do people say "got off topic fast"?* *got off topic quickly?* *ahh grammar I love you but sometimes you're so hard to figure out* *that sounds like I'm in a rocky relationship with grammar?? o_O*)

okay I'll try to get an actual response out later but Ig for now it's time to list out everything I need to do! Spanish homework, fold laundry, finish club application, shower, clean out my blue backpack, finish my sandwich, check my schedule, finish my Girl Scout video and report to my BFF...

also btw I'm going to reiterate that that guy at school and I are not friends and we're basically more like business partners lol because *cough* don't shop when ur hungry by salem illese or something like that thanks Hex---um obscure reference Ig moving on---also he already has his group of friends because he is just (as my brother would say) like that and I honestly can't see us really being friends because I disagree with a lot of what he does (though he is super nice :) ). The funny thing about this is that I feel overprotective of him for some reason lol and I love him/p just because it's so easy to be myself around him (sort of because I think we both know that we're not friends, it's kind of funny how those things work), plus he's genuinely nice and I mean idk he's the one person at school I'm speaking to right now (I'm serious though). Actually, speaking of, I went to talk to him at lunch today because our two groups (yes I have a friend group even though I mostly don't ever talk to any of them because I'm just *cough* like that haha. And this year was supposed to be better too. Except it's only been a few weeks and this week and especially today I've just already totally given up and I don't even care to make an effort anymore because I feel like I'm doing this for ulterior reasons (I want to earn something, I want to be able to give good reports to my parents, I want to not be lonely anymore) instead of doing this to like talk and connect with people and actually make friends and it feels to me right now like this isn't what I need because I'm putting myself out there which is what you're supposed to do right except putting myself out there isn't really the kind of friendships that I feel true with and I know that putting myself out there can lead to those kinds of friendships where people know you and you know they'll forgive you and you can just let silences sit and it's fine but idk I just can't really do that right now because it just doesn't really feel true to myself. I feel like I didn't explain that right---what I mean is that it's just too draining to do that right now. So I've just stopped.) and okay I was going to tell a funny story but I just completely ruined it right before the "punchline" with my rant didn't I? It was nice to get that all sorted out and organized into words though, writing stuff out just makes it easier to see exactly what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling what I'm feeling and my parents always tell me to explain what I'm feeling but I don't even know and it's easier to do that when it's no pressure and just me writing (I wonder if that's a side-effect of covid?). Okayy... I'll set up the funny story again. And then I REALLY have to do all that stuff above and it's like wait if you could use up all that time to write this then couldn't you have just written an actual response to this chat thread but idk.

Okay, so we were at lunch today and we were both sitting with our two friend groups and like halfway through lunch I just walked up to him---I probably should give him a name, but I feel like that's too much of a "friends" thing to do---and asked him something and blah blah blah casually and stuff and y'know my other classmates do this sort of thing with other classmates all the time but my squish was sitting next to him and you should've seen my squish when I just walked up to him and started talking I think my squish was so confused haha because I Never talk to people and this is a guy that's totally new to this school and no one knows him and a lot of people don't know that I know him and people probably have never seen us hang out before and I just jumped into this random conversation with him with no context so to other people it probably sounded like a sorta nonsense conversation except we were on the same page (heh, page. Unintentional pun :D makes sense if you understand the context :) ) because to us, this is an on-going conversation, so he immediately gets it and idk when I talk to him for me it feels like we've been friends since forever so that's probably what other people see too and idk I'm doing a super unnecessarily long explanation, it was just really funny :)