OK, full disclosure. It's 4:30 AM, I have what's probably going to be the hardest test I've ever taken in my college career on Wednesday, it's in a class I'm already failing, I'm stressing hard as **** and can't sleep, and as I've been laying down and trying to for the last several hours, my mind's been wandering to some feelsbadman kind of places.

Now that being said, I got thinking tonight, sort of "worst comes to worst, you get booted out of grad school. In that situation, what wouldactuallymake you happy? If that situation comes, what's the one thing you'd want to say/do/hear". And being honest, it's probably my old employer or advisor saying they still want me around. I guess it boils down to a need for approval.

It's weird, because I don't necessarily care if my peers like me. I just assume they all fukkin don't, cause guess what, it's normally true, so I've never really attempted to change that. It actually doesn't bother me very much that they think I'm awkward or weird. Same thing with girls. I've sort of accepted that none of them like me, so it seriously doesn't bother me much when they give me one word responses or eyefuk hawt guys or try and use me for homework. It sort of feels bad at a surface level, but I don't actually care about it; it doesn't trigger me like it seems to do with a lot of miscers. Frankly, I'm absolutely fine without any girls around.

So I guess approval in the sense of being liked isn't the right way to put it. But to be valued or needed by someone? Fuuuck, THAT'S what gets me. Like for a manager or advisor or coworker, I will go the extra mile for them 10 times out of 10, and it's not cause I have a financial gun to my head like with academics, it's just to get that atta boy from them. And it never fukkin happens of course, they don't actually give a fuk about me. I'm a 23 yo who's an interchangeable grunt at anything I do at this point, cause I just naturally lack the experience to be any more valuable right now. That's life, son. But as I mentioned above, I care what they think about me more than I should.

With my peers, it's like the same thing. If I'm out on some camping trip, I've got to find some way to be useful. If someone can't get a lab to work, I've got to help them out. Roommate can't cook, gotta try cooking for them. Underclassmen on Discord don't know what classes to take, got to help them out. I'm just super thirsty for that atta boy from somebody. And the worst thing I hate more than ****ing anything, that WILL trigger me and send me on a day long bad feels trip, is feeling like I'm being a burden to someone.

I don't know. It's like I've accepted that no one's ever going to like me, so I've just become set on becoming useful to somebody in some way, I guess that's sort of the way I've ended up seeking approval/validation. When I frame it that way, it seems like level 9000 FA cope, and I'm curious to see if my fellow FA brahs feel the same way.

Cliffs:
-Dear diary
-OP is an FA *******