This I believe

I believe that a person shouldn't be judged by how they look.

Through all my life in high school, me and my friends were judged by how we looked and by what we did. We all got the label of "geek" and "nerd" and all of those grossly overused stereotypes. Most of my friends shrugged it off, but some of us, including me, took it rather personally. I would lash back at people, insulting them and sometimes hurting their feelings back. Of course later I would feel bad for what I did, but I felt a sort of dark sense of satisfaction out of doing it. While I did get a bad rep with the more popular folk, my name was spread across campus and became a well known person. People I never even met knew my whole name and where I hanged out. This just made me more and more shy, as I was bad at meeting new people. In the end though, I finally stopped attacking back and sorta just let it happen. It has affected me to the point where I can barely talk to people anymore, let alone make eye contact. This makes it hard for me to make new friends and get used to new surroundings. In the back of my mind I'm afraid that if I make the smallest mistake, they will taunt me. I hate having attention drawn to me, because if I make the smallest mistake, I think they will talk about me behind my back for weeks. If I see two people looking over in my direction and whispering to each other, I automatically assume they're talking about me, making fun of me or something. Nowadays, I try my best to not be so paranoid about people. I don't talk much to other people, and just try to keep to myself. Usually someone notices me and that we have the same interests in computers or something else, and we begin to talk. Of course they have to start the conversation.