Breaking: Captain Bringdown Makes Post About Loneliness.

(Just some musings, excerpted from a longer locked entry at my LiveJournal. So it might seem unfinished.)

I'm in a...down mood tonight. And it just keeps getting worse.

I had a pretty good week. Went out a couple times, and then of course there was Saturday with my insane friends. It was nice to actually, y'know...be around people for a while. Then Sunday I was out by myself all day. Today I was locked in the stockroom at work, mostly alone. And tonight after I woke up from my nap and remembered there was no chance of having human interaction for the rest of the night, I got a little depressed.

I've honestly become accustomed to being alone. I've noticed it over time, because after an extended period of not doing much, the mere prospect of having to go out and deal with people is sincerely taxing. I have to look presentable, and try to remember social skills, yada yada... I get past it, and once I'm out, I'll start to have a good time. It comes back to me, and everything's fine. And then the more I keep venturing out, the more okay I am, the more I want to do it...

And then it crashes back down. Everyone's here and they want to do stuff, and then...they're busy, or they're just not around, or...whatever. But they're less available or willing, things aren't going on, and here I am again. Stuck somewhere between "eww, why do I want to deal with people?" and "OMG I'm so lonely." Between choosing antisocial because it's easier and comes with less letdown, and choosing to make an effort because antisocial sounds...well, boring. Nonetheless, I usually opt for antisocial. Path of least resistance and whatnot. Is that healthy? Probably not. But the stress I endure trying to take the other route is just too much.

I like to pretend I don't have feelings a lot of the time. I like to pretend, at least on the surface, that things don't bother me. When in reality they do. Often they bother me a lot. But I try to present my feelings publicly in a way that can instead be perceived as basic logic and reason, so that people who don't know me very well won't see my emotions as a weakness. It's a defense mechanism developed in part due to growing up in a very unaffectionate and relatively uncommunicative family, and also being the fat kid. No one cares how you feel at home, and if anyone sees you being emotional at school, you're dead. I bottle what I feel, or I mask it with jokes. This is still the case, but as I've gotten older, I've gotten much better about admitting to feeling things like a regular human being. Still not as open as I could be, but...I'll get there.

This has manifested itself in my social skills, as well. Being alone hurts, but I don't always like to admit it. It's also easier, because then I don't have to worry about reconciling my cold nature with the fact that getting close to people means I'm going to feel something. Eventually I'll have to face the idea that I'm emotionally involved and invested in someone, and I automatically believe that will turn out to be more trouble than it's worth. Because I'm insecure, and they'll let me down by doing something that I will inevitably take personally, even if that's not what was intended. I have friends that I consider to be "close," but every notion to support that is followed by the question of whether they'd view our relationship the same way. Which really just puts us back at the beginning of this entry.