Mesofor

I always wear dark or totally opaque pants and skirts, since I was a kid. My skin tone is naturally a Hispanic golden-brown. My legs are milky white since they never see the sun, but there are tiny brown pinpoint spots of melanin, like tiny freckles, at the base of the hair shafts on my legs. You can see them even after waxing. Does everyone have this? Will they disappear if I tan and even out the tone?

I've always listened to my parents. They are strictly religious, and as such, I've always pretended I cared about religion too. I have two siblings who are true believers like my parents. It isn't too hard to be ultra-conservative because I'm also a terrible introvert, and when you don't socialize much with people you don't do bad things with them either. Still, I haven't truly believed in God at least since I was five years old.

I'm 24 now, in graduate school abroad. I'm in a totally different country than the rest of my family.

But I'm still part of my campus religious organization for my denomination, and I'm active. I still dress in exactly the same conservative way my parents want me to. I keep up the facade because I don't want to be a hypocrite--telling my family one thing, but being entirely a different thing in action. The idea of acting in a way that's different from what people believe of me rubs me the wrong way, but yet I've formed a habit over years of acting in a way that's different from what I believe, playing the role my parents expect of me.

Most people, I think, overcome this pattern of behavior in their teens. I just lived with it instead, and thus I think I have missed a few points in my development as an adult. I had a clandestine online relationship or two and they both ended of their own accord; I've never yet had the chance to have a real relationship, ultimately for lack of trying.

I've come to the point where I'm deeply frustrated by this dichotomy, this cognitive dissonance. I'm tired of living up to a standard I don't believe in. I don't do anything different in real life right now, but joined a dating site or two when I realized the last thing I want is to let my parents set me up with another person who's going to expect me to be this religious saint--it'll just be more acting for me and if he ever figures out how much of a fake I am, it'll only cause pain to him, too.

So I joined these dating sites, but I'm actually too scared to put a picture of myself on my profile! I feel like I don't even own my image, because I know if my parents ever happen to see that picture (who knows, a friend might find it and show them) then they'll be so disappointed in me.

Should I just wait it out and keep pretending? Considering that I've gotten by 24 years this way, maybe I don't really mind this lifestyle. Maybe I'm actually more comfortable with religion than without it, even though I don't believe in it one little bit. Maybe if I marry a religious man the way they want me to, I'll still get all I want out of the relationship and family life without ever having to expose my dissatisfaction with religion and God.

Most likely, if I just sit around and wait, my parents will have arranged a marriage for me within the next 1-2 years, as they did for my siblings before me. Those siblings are happy with what they have.

Sometimes what I want out of life is to be with someone who understands me, to stop lying for a while, to let my hair down in company, to find out what alcohol tastes like, to fall in love with someone I meet and not have to kill my feelings, to show a little cleavage when I go out sometimes. To be honest to myself but also to be a little deviant, a little experimental. I normally shut this impulse down but I want to get it out in writing before my conscience shuts me up. If you've got any feedback, please help.

What courses of action do I have? The only course of action that is familiar and "safe" to me is pretending, hiding, and waiting it out, but in that method I fear the lifelong festering of dissatisfaction and remaining unfulfilled. I don't know, but maybe the time to change is now, before I sign myself up for a life I won't be happy living.