Lonely people

Somehow it has come to pass that people come to me to off-load their feelings about being pathetically lonely losers.  It is really inexplicable.  Just because I am being nice to you doesn’t mean I am your friend, it is called being polite.

So yeah, I have become this dumping ground for people’s no-feelings because, hey, I am too polite to point out the many many personality flaws that lead to them being sad sacks who will die alone.

Let me back up here and point something out:  There is a big difference between being alone, as in not having any other people around at the given moment, and being lonely.  Just because I live alone doesn’t mean I am trapped under a perpetual rain cloud of sad.  The difference, rather obviously, is that being lonely is all about not wanting to be alone, but not having the wherewithal to find another person who wants to be around you.

Though really that is kind of excusable, the inability to find another person.  Look in a mirror: would you want to hang out with that?  Probably not.  Which is why nobody wants to hang out with you, and you are reduced to cornering people under the false belief that if they can’t escape they must be your friend.

I should point out that this is a metaphorical mirror: it is not what you look like, it is how you act that is so objectionable.

A big part, naturally, is being so fucking sad all the time.  This may, to the casual idiot, seem like a catch-22 that being sad drives people away, thus ensuring you remain sad.  This is not the case.  The belief that other people are what you need to not be sad, that these imaginary people will bring something to fill the gaping hole inside you, making you complete, that is completely delusional horse-shit.

It is a common delusion but that doesn’t make it true (viz. Religion).

If you really hang on to that belief the only outcome is to be a massively codependent emotional parasite.  This works well for a surprising number of people, for a time at least, until their host withers and dies, then they are alone again.

Supposing I am drunk, high, and suffering from massive brain damage I would probably give advice of the following kind:

Be ok with yourself.  Find the side of your life that is good.  It exists, regardless of what you currently tell yourself.  Guess what?  If you are doing it right, then you don’t need someone.  You can actually be happy by yourself pursuing your life projects, and possibly have friends of your own.

I say possibly have friends because you also have to be less massively self obsessed.  But the two are linked.  Unsurprisingly most of the desperately lonely people I know are massively full of themselves.  This isn’t always obvious because they are frequently being sad-sacks or social parasites (or both!) but at the core is the inability to look outside themselves for even a second and find something worth thinking about beyond themselves.  When they simply cannot take part in a conversation without turning it back to be all about them and why everything is terrible in their lives, well I would call that being self obsessed.

You also need basic social skills, which as I get older the lonely people who gather in my wake have fewer and fewer of.  Basic things like respecting people’s personal space (e.g. no uninitiated and unwanted touching), respecting other people’s feelings (e.g. no arguing with people about their feelings, esp. why they shouldn’t be feeling freaked out by your unwanted touching), and basic personal hygiene and manners (e.g. no talking with your mouth full, be mindful of body odour).  If you creep the shit out of people they generally don’t want to be your friend.

Yeah that can be hard but guess what: it is nobody else’s fault but yours that you are sad and lonely.

I think a big part of being a sane adult is recognizing who you are, with all the faults and inadequacies.  If anything it gives you something to work towards.  At the very least learning to accept your faults and trying to find patches to make yourself more socially presentable makes for a nicer social life, and a nicer life in general.

I am not going to sit here and claim that I am some self-actualized god or anything stupid like that.  After spending so long having someone to be my crutch, someone to whom I could complain about all the crap in my life, it was really tough being alone and learning to deal with my life on my own.  But every day I spend in the company of myself I become a better person.  A happier person.

If anything I feel like I can’t talk about being alone to people, especially people who have “found someone”, because all I get is the “oh you’ll find someone!”.  But I don’t want to, or at least I don’t want to have to find someone to be happy.  I want to be the person who is totally fine with dying alone.  Because being alone is not some cursed state, it isn’t leprosy, it is the freedom of being by yourself.

so yeah this post was all the things people don’t want to hear, but which I actually think.  Because people want to hear the “oh you’ll find someone!” line, even when it is blindingly obvious that they won’t, not if they continue the way they are, not someone you would want to find at least.  But I tell them “oh you’ll find someone!” anyway.

Also you may have noticed the subtle subtext about X, who does nothing but complain to me about absolutely everything, keeps trying to get me to engage her in a discussion of her divorce (god no), and generally gives me the no-feeling by invading my personal space rather routinely.  It is fucking exhausting dealing with her.  Though for some self reflection, I feel bad about all the times I have just let go with all my steaming emotional diarrhoea upon friends and family.