I'm a junior in high school. For ten years, all the way from kindergarten until my freshman year, I went to the same school system and the same relatively small town. Though I was never very socially deft, I made some friends, especially in my freshman year, in which I acquired a lot of close friends. It was both one of my happiest and unhappiest periods of my life...unhappy to the point where I failed at a suicide attempt and wound up in a psych ward...but happy to the point that I've never known such love in my life from such strong friends.

But then, my sophomore year, I went to a new, arts-focused high school in a nearby city -- all of twenty minutes away. Despite the fact I LOVED the school, and liked a lot of the new people I met, I never really made, for whatever reason, any new close friends. I never really *fully* opened up at this new school...and by the end of my sophomore year, for reasons that are my fault just as much as anybody else's, I had lost practically all of my close friends from my previous school. I now talk to them maybe once every few months, and then only over the phone.

To wrap it up, I have an eighteen year old stepsister and a stepbrother my age who, up until less than a year ago, lived here with my mother and stepfather. Stepsister moved out, stepbrother decided to go live with his mom so now...I live with my twelve year old half-brother and twelve year old stepbrother...even the lack of my stepsister sharpens the intensity of my loneliness.

I feel like I'm rambling right now, and that I'm talking about things that don't really matter to anyone but me. But I just have to get it off my chest: every day I realize more and more how extremely lonely I am and how lonely I've been for over the past year. School isn't really bad...I have friends who I talk to and have fun with *at school*, but like I said, absolutely ZERO close friends these days. I never even touch my phone...

And it's painful. Really, really painful. I try to not let myself think about the pain on the weekends; I'll just try to get myself involved in a book or movie and forget that I'm alone with my two younger, frustrating brothers. I try to not let myself succumb to the deeper emotions I have because for some reason I feel that I'm just feeling sorry for myself if I allow myself to cry or if I start to slip into that "I'm friendless" mentatity...And I feel like I'm becoming more and more socially inept. I'm afraid I'll be alone like this for the rest of my life now; thinking about going off to college next year terrifies me.

Oh, and being gay doesn't really help...

-Josh