Suddenly I’m 13 again and remembering how lonely it can be when you’re bookish or shy or different in any noticeable way. I expect there are a fair number of folks on this forum who know how that goes. Be yourself. You won’t be happy being anybody else.The fact that you and others like you can find a place to be yourself here is one of the best things about iNat. You folks are the future of not just iNat but of the really important work that iNat supports with its different mandates. Giving you a place to learn while doing is one of iNat’s most important functions. I’m really glad you’re contributing here. That teacher deserves a big thank you from the iNat community.
Yeah, I turn 67 next week and I’m still working on it. Every time I get settled in something comes along to distract me. That’s not a bad thing. Humans are incredibly complicated things and there’s always something new to learn about them, even if the human you’re studying is yourself. Anyway, seems to me that if your life isn’t a work in progress it kind of means it’s done.
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Well, I’m also strange in many ways, I don’t have a phone (though I’ve got a tablet), I’m not interested in things other teens care about, am skinny am weird am nerd (kind of) am smarter than most of my classmates (trust me, it feels weird) ! But I’ve still got friends, but still sometimes experience social awkwardness.So books and other sources of information & knowledge have always been my friends. And I wasn’t much into nature until I found out iNaturalist during Covid-19 pandemic, through an video by the YouTube channel ‘It’s Okay To Be Smart’. Slowly my interest started increasing, and now it’s getting multiplied everyday ! I didn’t just learnt more about nature here, I also got some really nice friends like @fluffyinca, @navaneethsinigeorge & @pasindu_dilshan, who seem to me an alternate version of myself ! They love what I love, they care about things I care about, and are equally weird… 
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Oh, you should check out the neurodiversity thread!
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/neurodiversity-and-inaturalist/17268/221
I am by no means diagnosing you as ‘neurodivergent’ but I know a lot of us have the ‘weird smart awkward’ experience too. :)
I found a brain twin via the autism community online and it is an amazing and mystical thing. Also @mira_l_b is my brain cousin.
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Yeah sure, I’ll check it. And I’m not familiar with the terms like “brain twin” & “neurodivergent” , so I would have to first find out their meanings !
Brain twin is just a term made up by me and …my brain twin. It just describes the experience of finding someone very similar to you after feeling very different from everyone else your whole life.
Neurodivergent just means having a different neurology type than the more common (neurotypical) brain type. For instance being autistic, having ADHD, etc.
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what we used to call a soul mate, or a kindred spirit
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yes, though to me ‘soulmate’ implies a romantic relationship and while that may happen with some brain twins i don’t think it is a given?
First, someone like me, then maybe more?
My mother had an old Quaker saying
All the world’s queer
Save thee and I
And even thou
Art a little queer sometimes.
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