People get mad at me because I don't always agree with them or take everything they say as gospel. I question things, I want to know the facts, I want to know more before I decide one way or another, I've always questioned. I questioned my teachers in school, I question what people say they've heard, I question friends, I question. It's what I do. I put out my own thoughts and ideas on a subject, and just because someone says they know something, doesn't mean I won't still question it. 


But people get mad at me for not automatically taking everything they say at face value, for not automatically believing they're an expert on it, or know everything there is to know about it. People stop being my friend because I don't think or act the way they want me to, because I have opposing viewpoints, because I question them. 


I don't like losing friends. But I don't know how else to be. This is how I am. It's how I've always been. I think my own way. I can't help it. It hurts when people don't want to be my friend anymore because I say what I think and don't think the way they want me to. It hurts when people I care about get mad at me or stop speaking to me because I am how I am. 


I don't know how else to be. I really don't. I don't know how to just agree to agree, to get along. I don't know how to not question things or voice my thoughts. Sometimes I try not to, I really do, but that feels false to me, it feels wrong to just let things go by when I think something is not how it's being presented or when I have questions about their facts or when I know something, a lot, about a subject and I know they don't know what I know so I try to tell them. I'm not trying to be a know-it-all, but if I know, shouldn't I share that so they know, too? I'm not trying to say they don't know anything, but if I question something, shouldn't I ask the questions? 


But people get mad at me for saying something, for questioning, for not just agreeing with them or complimenting them without critiquing. 


And I lose friends. And it hurts to lose friends because I'm me. 


But I don't know how else to be.