Matching against WAY better opponents

Hello, I am quite lost and have no idea what to do, and I am super demotivated. I am around 850 rapid (10 mins one i hope its rapid) and my game review usually says around 1200. playing against my friends who are around 800 also I keep winning quite a lot. When I play rapid mm however, I get paired against people who just absolutely destroy me, although it says they are 850 for example, game review says they played like 1600 and even more sometimes. When I watch my friends play their opponents on average blunder like 5 queens a game (not really but you get the point), while i get these 1600 tryhards. What am i supposed to do, get better and just keep pushing? or is there another way? it feels really demotivating to play against people who are this good because I feel like i’m just getting stomped on by move 10 and don’t know what to do. This is a serious post, btw, I would really appreciate some advice i’m lost.

First of all, be aware that game review ratings are quite inflated. Everyone has good days and...not so good days.

Although people say the opening doesn't matter a whole lot, I think it kinda does. It doesn't really if it's a good opening, but if you don't know how to respond to common ones then you're obviously going to flounder.

Learning openings can be daunting, but I recently found a creator who has helped me with this: ChessWithAkeem. He's a Jamaican CM who records games he plays against relatively inexperienced players (ones around our level and slightly above), showing how to play common openings properly and how to correctly respond to offbeat openings; particularly early queen attacks. He also shows how to play more aggressively and be able to spot good sacrifices more easily.

I took a hiatus for a while and didn't really come back until two days ago, after I started watching his shorts. But the improvement in my gameplay so far has been quite noticeable. I'm waiting to see if it lasts, but what matters to me is that I've noticed how I've been playing a lot better. So, I recommend you watch some of his stuff.