Never become so desperate for belonging that you disappear inside it.

The wish to belong is one of the deepest human needs, and there is nothing weak about feeling it. The danger comes when the price of a particular group is your own outline, when your opinions, your humour, and your standards start dissolving into whatever the room requires. You can end up thoroughly included and completely absent at the same time.

Check whether the people around you have ever heard you disagree. If you cannot recall an instance, that is worth sitting with, not as a failure but as a signal. Say one true thing this week in a group where it is slightly inconvenient, and see how the belonging holds. Real belonging usually survives it.