I was just at a camp-fire with drunk people almost twice my age. (Well, about fifteen years older than me.) As I was driving home, I decided to try and come up with life-dreams. It’s so easy to notice and be resentful of people who seem constantly content, if not happy. (I do that all the time, in my awkward, wallflower-y way.) My new hope, and one I think might work for you as well, is trying to focus on finding my own happy, whatever it is that might be.

Because I think you’re right. It’s nauseating being an outsider watching pretentious social displays. Not caring, in the Zen kind of way, isn’t realistic as a goal, either. I’d rather care about something else so intensely that I don’t have a need to care so much about the people around me.

I mean, I’m still a whiny brat, after all.