It really is a blessing to be born having siblings. They can be a permanent lifelong friend to a person. Me having an older brother and younger sister growing up, I felt like I always had someone to entertain me whether my siblings liked it or not. I feel like being the second male child in the family, it was expected when I was growing up that my older brother was going to be a role model for me.  As a young child, I had actually developed a mindset where my older brother was supposed to initiate activity and I simply just followed in his footsteps. Living in different neighborhoods as a child growing up, I would rely on my brother to make new friends for me. At first I did not think this was a bad thing. I only cared about meeting people and calling them “friends”. I did not care about what type of person they were. I simply just thought that if a person will like my brother, that they should like me too. I thought that we were brothers and that people identified us as an inseparable pair. However, I was a very quiet and shy kid. And compared to my brother, he is sort of the more masculine type. He was also more sociable than me. He eventually got more involved in participating in more “masculine” hobbies like playing neighborhood football and basketball . I participated in these activities as well for conformity. Wanting to also portray my masculinity so that I could keep up with my brother and the other boys. I had this motive that I wanted people to see me more as just his little brother that follows him around and has no emotions. However, hanging out with him and his friends which I also called my friends, I realized that the masculine displayed by boys in hobbies like football and basketball was struggling to come out of me. I felt like these types of activities were not me at all. This feeling made me feel that my brother and I were different. That those were his friends that enjoyed those types of activities. From this situation, I had this feeling of loneliness because I feel I did not fit in anywhere. I could not really express my true self hanging out with other boys without bring judge about my more feminine nature which caused me to feel more isolated from society and I always struggled to make friends. My only outlet I had when I was growing up was playing video games. I would feel a sense of accomplishment when I were to complete a game or beat up a CPU in a multiplayer game. Video games is an activity that is portrayed as a more masculine hobby. I felt that this was one of the only hobbies that I was decent in to compete with my brother and and with his friends. I realized I could more easily prove myself to others in this hobby. I felt like I can express myself to others and feel more accepted by other boys in society in gaming. Throughout growing up and even today, I feel that playing video games really made me less shy and made connect with more people. For example, during the pandemic, I got involved with Twitch and discord due to the restricted social interaction. I also made tons of online friends that I am got pretty close and I have also hanged out with them in local gaming events. I am a very shy and introverted person in general but I feel like the gaming community is were I can feel a bit more comfortable and find people who are like me. I feel like in today’s society, people like to classify lots of things as either more masculine or more feminine. People should just do the things they love without caring about how “different” they might be and but it can be hard because society is filled with stigmas that can hold people back.