It started three months into my eighth grade, when a girl I’ll call Jenna asked me to help her with research for an essay. Jenna was popular, whatever arbitrary criteria was used to determine that fact at the time. She didn’t talk to people like me, who were clearly beneath her and only capable of doing menial tasks like reading, solving algebra equations and writing essays. If only one day our intellect could measure up to that required to pick lipstick the same shade as our shoelaces, God willing.

As Jenna and I sat in the library one day, she started a one-sided conversation reminiscent of something that would take place in the world of Mean Girls. It went like this:

“Where do you get your hair done?”

I don’t.

“Do you shop?”

I own clothes so, if at all possible, you do the math.

“You should shop at Dolce & Gabbana and Calvin Klein.”

Whoa, whoa. Slow down. I don’t know about you, but my parents don’t own the World Bank.

“Your hair is really pretty.”

What? Really? Oh. Thanks. You really think my hair is pretty?

My short flirtation with Jenna, aside from eliciting some shy smiles and blushes from me, acted as a gateway into my lifelong addiction to validation, putting me on a path that careened from one personality to another. You could almost say I was worse than Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I ended up carving, painting and wearing masks depicting personas ranging from the femme fatale dancing on tables to the cover girl of How to Win Friends and Influence People.

I can’t say that the validation was particularly delightful because I was looking to make new friends. I wasn’t, regardless of what I might have claimed. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t even like the highly important and distinguished people I had the privilege of going out on a Friday night to eat fast food with. I would much rather have been in bed reading a book, but for the fact that these newly crafted relationships were an ethereal portal to the higher high I was really after, which took the shape of phrases like, “Wow, you look really good today” or, “I bet that guy likes you.”

And for a while, this was enough. But people get bored. And alas, every junkie reaches a certain tolerance level, after which they must increase their dosage. There always needed to be a new way to dress, a new story to tell, a new piece of gossip and a new mouth to kiss — even if it was all a lie. Keeping people interested meant transitioning from one mask to the next. These transitions were often marked by exhausting overplay, theatricalities rehearsed to perfection and sobbing in front of my bathroom mirror for never being pretty, extroverted or witty enough. Despite the toll this took on my mental wellbeing, I still kept doing it. I couldn’t not do it.

At one point I had people believing that I could ace tests without even cracking open a book — because I was such a genius, I had internalized the chemical nomenclature two minutes after I was born. That the hottest guy in our grade had indeed asked me out — how could he not, I’m as real as real can get. And that I’d definitely be getting a piercing over the summer, obviously.

Unfortunately, they don’t have a quick cure for predicaments like mine. After certain plotlines converging and fierce confrontations about stories not kept straight, I checked myself into a sanctuary within and withdrew from everybody that I had to sport a fake smile around.

I could argue that my behavior was only the result of popular expectations in my environment, but the need for approval only arises due to the feeling that one does not measure up to others, and I fail to understand what kind of higher authority comes from any given group of people, especially my peers.

Yes, I speak with the wisdom of a sage when barely a year ago I was but a fool. Even now, I wouldn’t say I’m completely cured, but I’m definitely on the path to recovery. I’m like the smoker who used to smoke ten packs a day, but after a lung cancer scare now only smokes ten cigarettes a week. I’m getting there.

Hi, my name is Larayb, and I am an approval junkie.