Three years, and then another three. It feels like what just ended isn't the college entrance exam, but my youth itself. Looking back deeply on my studies and life over these years, I realize that for nearly six years, I've been endlessly hoping for a bright and beautiful future—one that isn't just about impressive scores, but also includes a more aspirational life, stronger friendships, and a romance straight out of an anime. The reality, however, is that none of these three things have come true, even though I don't think the problem is entirely my fault.

Growing up in Shenzhen, students get used to scrolling through web novels and short videos from a young age. This feeds them a distorted view of life, love, and even values. Girls, instead of using their hearts to feel the real world, are more likely to trust what they see on that app with red backgrounds and white text. Boys prefer gaming, talking about games, or repeating stale internet memes—problems I thought only showed up in kids who got online way too early.

This leads to an obvious issue: their sense of authenticity has been fooled by online content. All this fake maturity, fake cross-individual connection, and fake understanding of the world's true nature have twisted the hearts of today's young people. I'm not denying that this can be one way to engage with the world, but it builds a wall between their online interactions and real-life communication. The gap between different groups keeps widening—outsiders can't get in, and insiders don't want to let anyone in. They willingly trap themselves in an information—no, a cognitive cocoon. An information cocoon is built from the outside; a cognitive cocoon is more self-imposed, a new kind of cage formed by refusing to change one's perception of the outside world.

Simultaneously, this kind of disconnect is more likely to happen among girls—they often have a sense of hierarchy that's hard for us to understand. Take the girls in my class as an example. From what I can tell, the complexity of their cliques is no less than the dynastic changes during the Three Kingdoms, Two Jins, and Southern and Northern Dynasties. At least the latter had patterns and reasons you could trace; the former has almost none and can shift with sudden events—like someone's wish not being fulfilled in the moment, a friendship suddenly breaking, or even a slip of the tongue. Any of these can intermittently or completely shatter that fragile peace (or balance). I still can't fully understand it, but I know I might not fully understand them. What I do know is that this year is 2026 (if you don't get it, go download Kuaishou and Xiaohongshu, set your age under 18, and choose female as your gender—you'll understand). Also, their level of information access is unbelievable, and here, "information" is a derogatory term. Maybe it has a lot to do with us being in the humanities stream. Anyway, I'll stop here. Probably no one will read my article anyway. If you're willing to listen, click the comment below… and remember to set it to private.

From the guys' perspective, the boys in our class are unusually united (compared to other classes, there are no cliques among us; even if one or two think differently from the majority, we tolerate them well). Still, I can't seem to build a deep connection with them. Even though I crave their recognition and hope for a chance to help them, they don't seem to like that. This makes me feel like an independent, special existence they can't understand. I guess that's my own problem—since it's hard to find common topics with them, and because of some weird rumors at the start of the semester, the girls in our class developed a strange, mistaken impression of me (probably because some troublemakers in my previous class deliberately trashed my reputation, and some of them were close friends with a girl who later transferred into our class—they're regulars on that app with red backgrounds and blue text. The girl who spread the rumors about me happened to share a dorm with her. Rmmm, this bizarre combination, after some strange alchemical reaction like spaghetti with No. 72 concrete, created an interpersonal Berlin Wall with extremely complex origins). This meant that until graduation, I couldn't find a balanced position in class interactions. So I had to lower my posture to get along with classmates and maintain good relationships with teachers…

If you think that's it, sorry, but no.

Because many in our class didn't really approve of our homeroom teacher's management—even though she didn't do a great job later on (she was always doing administrative work, showing up late for class, and teaching at a snail's pace)—I ended up being called "Love TV" by some people (I still don't know what that means). This further widened the distance between me and the rest of the class.

Speaking of which, I find some students really strange. In their words, our school's food is terrible, the teachers are bad, and the campus environment is poor. I've never felt that way. To me, the cafeteria is a cafeteria, not a restaurant, and besides, the food isn't bad. Some say the cafeteria doesn't listen to feedback, but once I suggested that green vegetables should never have chili, and after that, I never saw chili on greens again. As for the teachers and environment being bad, that's even more nonsense. Most of our teachers are among the best in the school, and since it's a new campus, the greenery is nice. The dorms are four-person rooms with beds upstairs and desks downstairs. I can hardly imagine many other schools being better than ours. I don't understand—can't people in 2026 even appreciate what they have? Once, I posted our senior year's last-week schedule on Bilibili, and many said our routine was like heaven. I can clearly feel that most schools in mainland China don't have it this good; many still have hellish schedules like two days off a month or one day off every thirteen days. So I'm really grateful for schools in Guangdong.

So, it seems like there's a mutual inability to understand each other—between others and me, and between me and others. Even though I long to connect with them, it rarely ends well. I'm very dissatisfied with my interpersonal relationships over these three years. I really hope things improve in the future.

I'll stop here for now. This article wasn't written in one sitting, so it's barely coherent. Still, thank you for reading this far.

Thanks.

Best wishes.