I aspire to have the confidence of a 13-year-old boy in a 7th grade Texas history class. He was crazy, but he knew who he was.

Despite the existence of cliques that would say otherwise, we were all weird in middle school. You can’t put hundreds of tweenagers who are trying to figure themselves out in a building together five days a week and expect them to be normal.

While we tend to look back on those years with embarrassment — myself included — there’s a part of me that feels that was who we truly were. Before the worry of fitting in with a certain crowd, wearing the newest fashion trends or having the best Instagram aesthetic, middle school me was cringey — but she was also free.

We all want to be perceived a certain way. Girls dye their hair, get their nails done, wear expensive clothes and own designer accessories. It’s why boys go to the gym every day, consume concerning amounts of protein powder, get the same haircut and drive those souped-up Ford F-150s that were handed down from their grandfathers.

It’s also why everyone now loves NeeDohs, Dubai chocolate, soft-serve margaritas and those God-awful Alani energy drinks while hating millennials and the word “moist.”

Now, I understand that many of these examples are very stereotypical and gender specific, but that’s the whole point. We spend so much time trying to fit into these socially constructed boxes rooted in the gender binary that tell us how to act. We’re so worried about being accepted that it perpetuates a cycle of unoriginality.

I spent the better part of my high school years doing just this. My junior year, I basically forced my way into a friend group that I liked to tell myself I had a lot in common with. I started listening to new music — that I didn’t really like — repeating the same jokes as them — that I didn’t understand nor find funny — and changing my wardrobe and mannerisms.

In an effort to be fully in this group, I stopped keeping up with my old friends, alienating myself from who I was during my first two years of high school, which of course backfired.

After an event that is a bit too personal to share, I was essentially “kicked out” of the group because of another person’s actions — something that was definitely for the better, but didn’t seem like it at the time. I now had no friends and no idea who I was anymore. It was incredibly lonely.

I was so caught up with being perceived as cool and esoteric that I lost sight of who I was and became a worse version of myself. Over the past year, I’ve rediscovered a lot of my interests, especially those that I’ve tried to suppress because they were too “embarrassing,” and I’ve realized that a lot of what I’m accepting about myself are things middle school me knew and loved with confidence.

I do love musical theater, and I’m tired of pretending like the performing arts aren’t deeply connected to humanity itself. “Saturday Night Live” is funny, and we lack whimsy as a society for constantly critiquing it. Yes, I had a Panic! At The Disco and My Chemical Romance phase, and yes, some of those songs still hit. “Romeo and Juliet” is one of the most beautifully written pieces of literature in the English language, and we need to stop pretending like Shakespeare isn’t the most influential writer to ever exist. 

If admitting these things make me “weird,” then I’m weird. In the words of Jughead from “Riverdale,” “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m weird. I’m a weirdo. I don’t fit in, and I don’t wanna fit in.” 

And yes, “Riverdale” is cringey and an objectively horrible show, but that’s what makes it fun. I’d rather be myself and confident in my interests than be like everyone else and still be insecure. Sue me!

We need to start embracing our interests. Even though it can feel alienating to reject current trends if you don’t like them, I promise you’re not the only one. Being true to yourself and surrounding yourself with like-minded people is extremely liberating. 

Life is too short to spend it trying to be someone you’re not. If you like Benson Boone, embrace it! If you like anime, embrace it! And if you truly like an Alani, embrace it! Embrace your middle school identity and be true to you. 

To make this sound more important than it is, being “cringey” is being avant-garde; it’s not adhering to a set of arbitrary boundaries that you feel you’re expected to follow in a world where people are encouraged to be carbon copies of each other. Being cringey is just being yourself, so why would you want to be anything else?

Bethany Mann is a history freshman and opinion writer for The Battalion.