The Biggest Deal Ever

Once upon a time, four years ago, a variety of young people I'll call "classmates" went on an exodus across the country. Some of them moved to west coast states, some of them moved to southern states, and some of them even moved outside the US (!). They have been known to go not only a full week without running into their middle school gym teacher at Best Buy, some of them have even gone a full month. And not just without seeing former gym teachers, without seeing any former teachers! It seems like a totally outrageous society full of freewheeling lunatics, and it's certainly horrified me to the core, but bearing those facts in mind, it's kind of confounding to me that moving two hours away from my "hometown" at the tender age of 21-and-a-half is the biggest fucking deal ever. I don't understand! It doesn't make sense! I can't even fathom why people think it's so crazy and spontaneous when you factor in that EVERYONE ELSE DID IT FOUR YEARS AGO. For some reason "18 Yr Old Leaves Home" translates to "Leaving the Nest" and "21 Yr Old Leaves Home" translates to "Blatant Suicide Mission." And the craziest part is, this isn't even my hometown. I absolutely hated Pennsylvania for the first six years I lived here, AND I HAVE ONLY LIVED HERE TWELVE YEARS, so those are not favorable stats. I have nothing in common with anyone in Centre County. Like literally nothing. It took three years just for the weird kids to warm up to me. And my parents kept telling me to try to make more friends. It didn't happen - can I please stop now? How long do I have to pretend to care about JoePa before we can just call this a failed experiment? At this point it's just embarrassing for both of us. I feel like that kid who's forced to take violin lessons for ten years who absolutely hates it and never gets better, except for me it's Normal Human lessons. I'm just not cut out for this quiet desperation thing. If I'm going to be a freak, I'd rather just embrace it and live somewhere where I can blend in enough to be a Semi-Freak than have to live with 40,000 normal identical people and be an Ultra Mega Freak.