Greentext

It felt so weird when I got to college and started working and people were just treating me like a normal person. It took a long time for me to stop defaulting to trying to figure out what kind of trick they were playing on me. I still don't know wtf I did wrong as a child that made everyone decide I was to be ostracized.

I didn't have nearly the same awful relationship with rejection as you, but I had a similar experience as you did at your dance. I'm pretty introverted and rarely join social circles, for a bit of context.

When I went to college, we had a directory of everyone in the building with a picture and name (200 people, more or less). So naturally, we (roommates) picked out our favorites, yet few of us did anything about it. One roommate asked the girl out that he picked (she was my #2), and they ended up dating, and he convinced my to go to dance with him. I went, and he was late (probably making out or something), and my #1 waved me over from across the room, so I went over and talked. We ended up exchanging numbers, dating, and now she's my wife. Unfortunately, she had already applied to transfer to another school, so we dated long distance for a while before getting married, but it worked out. I still kick myself for waiting so long to ask her out, because we could have spent that time together instead of over video calls.

A bit of confidence can really go a long way, and screw all the kids who reject others in those formative years. When I see my kids do anything similar, I come down on them really hard, because I don't want my kids to be the reason other kids feel rejected.

It's not an entirely faulty line of thinking in that environment. Those bastard kids really did do that kind of thing all the time and they found it hilarious. When all your experiences up until that point made such an unexpected scenario seem unlikely, the chances of it being a cruel prank instead probably really are higher or even higher still someone recognising your plight and trying to be charitable whilst not quite realising that that hurts almost as much.

As you probably guessed I didn't enjoy school a whole lot either. I hope she was sincere though dude. God knows school fucks with your mind.

always assuming that no one could really like me and anyone who acted as if he or she did was just pitying me or playing some cruel prank on me that I was too socially inept to see.

Same, even went to tinder to try to get some validation, but still felt like they were just pitying me and always ended up ghosting my matches and never doing anything besides the initial small talk, it's a hole that's very hard to crawl out of.

That sounds... ominous

Shut yourself in and never meet people ever.

Break the bottle and start stabbing

That's social media in general. Actually marketing is specifically designed to prey on people's insecurities.

Eh, they are a less inhibited form of adults, and a product of their upbringing.

They sense and exploit weakness for personal gain. Plenty of adults do that too. That's where they learn it from.