Well...I can't believe it.
But I walked into Best Buy this morning and somehow walked out with a MacBook Pro M3 14" with the 18gb of ram, 11 core CPU, 14 core GPU, 512 SSD. I haven't used an apple device in ages besides messing around with them in the store every now and then. This laptop checked every box for me and due to the back to school and Labor Day sale...I was able to score this for $1499. It was $2000.
I am so far enjoying it. I like the size, its fairly light weight. Comfortable to type and I am already getting used to MacOS. But its gonna take time to be familiar with it. The screen is incredible!
After all these years of being anti-apple, I own one now

Although Apple really
really wants you to be part of their ecosystem, I am still going to keep using my Google Pixel. I really do like Android but I there are a lot of Macbook owners who don't use any other apple products. I never synced my phone (besides the browser) with my windows PC. I don't need text and phone calls going through onto my PC. Thats what a dang phone is for!
Overall, the experience has been pretty positive. I'll have to make some changes here and there, but change is good and that's exactly what I was looking for.