Loneliness is a strange thing. I couldn’t say quite how it feels. There’s this persistent sense that someone else should be here with you. But it’s more than just wanting a physical presence. I have this deep psychological longing for someone to understand. To really understand who and what I am. For someone to see what I do and the reasons I do it. To feel what I feel. To not be alone in my experience of the world.
I’m not sure that’s possible for anyone, let alone someone as fucked up as me. Everyone is confined to their own unique experience, their filters for viewing reality. You can’t ever really know that someone else sees the world in the same way you do, or is on your wavelength. That they perceive, experience, and understand in the same way that you do. All you can do is look for signs, signals that something similar might be going on in their mind. And hope that your guesses bear some semblance to reality.
But it’s not like that even matters for me. I don’t believe in ‘soulmates’, in the sense of the one special person you’re ‘supposed’ to be with. But even if there was a female equivalent of me, someone ‘on my level’, then I probably wouldn’t want anything to do with them. I imagine they’d be serving a life sentence somewhere, have terrible personal hygiene, and be a nightmare to be around.
The point being that anyone who got anywhere close to the truth of who I am and still wanted to be with me would have to be so desperate or disturbed that I wouldn’t want to be with them. I don’t deserve a relationship, of any kind. Even if I could find someone that I liked enough to overcome my general misanthropy, the only way I could get them to stick around would be to lie about most of my life and self. Which would kind of defeat the purpose.
I guess it’s just one of the many problems that arises from being a piece of shit. But it’s not something I can really change in the short term.
6 comments
Yeah, we’re meant to live in families. But that’s dangerous to the powers that be. There is strength in numbers
Every mistake we make is a chance to learn, I guess. Maybe you are being too hard on yourself. Hearing this isn’t going to help you much but know that you’re not alone.
Humans can be great communicators. They have intelligence and empathy. People pierce the envelope all the time. There are untold books and songs that resonate with us. Somebody out there gets it.
Viewing yourself as a piece of shit just makes the walls of your bubble stronger. You have to fight it AND you have to painfully bang your head against the bubble walls until you break through.
It may seem impossible but people do it all the time. You can, too. This isn’t a burden or a chore; this is lifesaving.
You’re right about books and songs ‘piercing the envelope’. I’ve spent a lot of time clinging to those that used to resonate, but they don’t ring true for me anymore. I’ve been searching for something to replace them, but nothing really fills the void. No one writes from my experience. I think I’ve put myself beyond that kind of understanding now. The few people who might really get it are too consumed by their own self-hatred to communicate it, and are too unlikable to actually relate to anyway.
I know the self-hatred strengthens my bubble. But it’s all there is. It’s the truth. Pretending things are otherwise is exhausting. And there doesn’t seem to be any way out of this bubble. Those who are in situations even close to mine are few and far between, and I’ve never heard of anyone transcending it in any meaningful way. It defines you, no matter what you do.
I understand what you are saying. One thing you said particularly stood out.
“Pretending things are otherwise is exhausting.”
Self loathing seems to be pretty exhausting, too.
I suppose it is in a way. But it’s kind of less effort. You can sort of sink into it, wallow in it. Whereas if you’re pretending, then you’re constantly desperately trying to divert your mind from the truth. You’re vulnerable to seeing through the cracks in the wall you’ve constructed at any moment. There’s an added layer of fear that comes with denial.