Cadets and UFC

In high school I had the bad idea of watching UFC / MMA fighting. Everyone in my cadet corps watched it and would be ranting and raving about last night's fight. I felt left out because I could not engage in the exciting conversations and would sit silently while everyone else carried on. I was tired of being left out of conversations because I did not watch the same program as them. I felt that I was not relating to my friends and being a part of a big and current trend that was always the main discussion.  I felt so left out I even got my mom to watch it with me! I gained nothing from the experience (I saw a guy's ear gush with blood and I was officially over it) and even watching the fights I still did not have any input in conversations at cadets because I spent majority of the fight averting my eyes. Now I was silent during the conversations even after watching it myself. 

In my case, the only power involved was my own insecurity of not being relatable to my friends. I was not peer pressured to watch UFC, but I wanted to feel like I belonged. I still was apart of my friend group and my friendships did not change. What I feared the most did not happen  and I drove myself to conformity for no good reason.