BRAIN DUMP: FEELING LONELY
Ahh, what are your 20s for if not an existential crisis every other week? Before you continue reading, make sure you're comfortable because this is going to be a chatty one.
Ever since I was little, I was used to liking things on my own. I've always been interested in the arts and my family isn't so I've always been alone with my interests and I've gotten used to being the only one who likes anything on the creative side. My family is also not big on talking about our feelings. Well, we're not big on talking in general but feelings were definitely not a thing we discussed. So you can imagine that my siblings and I grew up just keeping everything to ourselves. I remember when my brother started junior high, we were all eating dinner and he asked "Have you guys ever had a crush?". My sister and I looked at him weirdly and even though the answer was yes, we didn't answer because feelings. Since then my brother has never brought up anything about crushes or dating again and looking back at it, I wish I had answered my brother. Imagine being 12 or 13 and experiencing crushes for the first time and not having anyone to talk to.
Because I've gotten used to keeping things to myself, sharing feelings and showing people how I feel has never been easy for me. Being an introvert and liking being by myself doesn't help. I like dealing with my problems by myself and if I can avoid asking for help, I won't even bring up the problem at all. Even with the people that I considered to be my best friends, I was still closed off and didn't share a lot of personal stuff with them. Not because I didn't trust them or anything like that, I jut never told people personal stuff about myself while growing up and that's how I've always been and that's how I continued to be. It never even occurred to me to tell my friends about it, like "Hey, it's nothing personal. I'm just a really private person". My best friends didn't really share personal things with me either so I assumed that we all worked the same, that we were all private people. But looking back at it now, I realize that it was just me they weren't telling personal stuff to. They had other people to vent to and I guess they assumed that I didn't want to hear about their problems because I never went to them about mine. I thought that they understood that I liked being by myself not because I didn't like being around them but because I just needed time to myself. It came to a point where I wouldn't be invited to things and whenever the event would be brought up later on they'd say that they assumed I wouldn't have wanted to go out anyway.
And now you know the background story. Yup, that's just the background story. I told you this was going to be a chatty one.
Like I said, I'm an introvert. I like being by myself and having my own space. I've never really felt lonely before because time alone was something I preferred. But at the end of high school and going into college, I started to feel lonely for the very first time. Spring semester of senior year seems to be when every friend group starts to break apart and people start to show their true colors. Everyone starts to figure out who their real friends are and who they're going to keep in contact with after high school. I quickly realized that there weren't a lot of people who wanted to stay in contact with me.
That sounds super sad and tragic but it's true. People that I used to hang out with started hanging out with other people and I just felt like I was intruding. I tried to be positive and mature about it and thought it's okay if they have new friends, it's not like they're not my friends anymore. But really, it sucked and it felt like they weren't my friends anymore. I just felt abandoned. I've talked about this specific topic with the people involved before but I didn't really go in depth about it. I didn't tell them that I felt like I was a bad friend and that I blamed myself for them wanting to hang out with other people. I didn't tell them that I was sorry for not being more often and making them feel like I didn't want them around. When high school ended, a lot of my friendships ended as well.
From a young age, it's been instilled in our brains that college will be the best years of our lives. We're going to meet so many new people and find life long friends, it's a step into adulthood without the full commitment. I went into college feeling hopeful and cautious. Hopeful because I was looking forward to these "life long friends" that I was promised by the universe and cautious because I had to start all over again. I was scared that my being introverted and private would prevent me from making friends and it'd be like high school all over again. You know that quote that's something like "Feeling alone in a room full of people?" That's how I felt at college. There's so many people around me but I still felt lonely. Part of if was because I was still thinking about my old friends and even now, I still think about my old friends. It might be a closure thing, I never fully told them how I felt so I constantly think "What if?" I think about reaching out to them but it's been years and it'd be kind of weird to talk about it. Feeling nostalgic and lonely is never a good combination. There was a point where I was feeling so low that I actually unfollowed them on social media because seeing their new lives was making me even more sad. That sounds really immature but at the time, it made me feel better. I've come to terms that I won't have my old friends back but that "What if?" feelings comes back sometimes.
I'm in the spring semester of my third year of college and I'm not really friends with anyone these days. I have friends, yeah, but I don't have friends that know me and understand how I work and vise versa. I've been more open with my feelings but every time I've tried to open up, I feel like they're not really interested. Or maybe they're not used to me sharing things and they're uncomfortable with my feelings. Either way, I feel like I'm bothering them so I go back to not sharing. I feel like I'm so out of practice when it comes to having close friends or maybe I just never learned how to have close friends and keep them. As someone who spends a lot of time alone, and likes spending time alone, this is the loneliest I've ever felt. I try to keep myself busy, that's why there's been a lot of posts lately, but that sinking feeling still lingers.
Because I've gotten used to keeping things to myself, sharing feelings and showing people how I feel has never been easy for me. Being an introvert and liking being by myself doesn't help. I like dealing with my problems by myself and if I can avoid asking for help, I won't even bring up the problem at all. Even with the people that I considered to be my best friends, I was still closed off and didn't share a lot of personal stuff with them. Not because I didn't trust them or anything like that, I jut never told people personal stuff about myself while growing up and that's how I've always been and that's how I continued to be. It never even occurred to me to tell my friends about it, like "Hey, it's nothing personal. I'm just a really private person". My best friends didn't really share personal things with me either so I assumed that we all worked the same, that we were all private people. But looking back at it now, I realize that it was just me they weren't telling personal stuff to. They had other people to vent to and I guess they assumed that I didn't want to hear about their problems because I never went to them about mine. I thought that they understood that I liked being by myself not because I didn't like being around them but because I just needed time to myself. It came to a point where I wouldn't be invited to things and whenever the event would be brought up later on they'd say that they assumed I wouldn't have wanted to go out anyway.
And now you know the background story. Yup, that's just the background story. I told you this was going to be a chatty one.
Like I said, I'm an introvert. I like being by myself and having my own space. I've never really felt lonely before because time alone was something I preferred. But at the end of high school and going into college, I started to feel lonely for the very first time. Spring semester of senior year seems to be when every friend group starts to break apart and people start to show their true colors. Everyone starts to figure out who their real friends are and who they're going to keep in contact with after high school. I quickly realized that there weren't a lot of people who wanted to stay in contact with me.
That sounds super sad and tragic but it's true. People that I used to hang out with started hanging out with other people and I just felt like I was intruding. I tried to be positive and mature about it and thought it's okay if they have new friends, it's not like they're not my friends anymore. But really, it sucked and it felt like they weren't my friends anymore. I just felt abandoned. I've talked about this specific topic with the people involved before but I didn't really go in depth about it. I didn't tell them that I felt like I was a bad friend and that I blamed myself for them wanting to hang out with other people. I didn't tell them that I was sorry for not being more often and making them feel like I didn't want them around. When high school ended, a lot of my friendships ended as well.
From a young age, it's been instilled in our brains that college will be the best years of our lives. We're going to meet so many new people and find life long friends, it's a step into adulthood without the full commitment. I went into college feeling hopeful and cautious. Hopeful because I was looking forward to these "life long friends" that I was promised by the universe and cautious because I had to start all over again. I was scared that my being introverted and private would prevent me from making friends and it'd be like high school all over again. You know that quote that's something like "Feeling alone in a room full of people?" That's how I felt at college. There's so many people around me but I still felt lonely. Part of if was because I was still thinking about my old friends and even now, I still think about my old friends. It might be a closure thing, I never fully told them how I felt so I constantly think "What if?" I think about reaching out to them but it's been years and it'd be kind of weird to talk about it. Feeling nostalgic and lonely is never a good combination. There was a point where I was feeling so low that I actually unfollowed them on social media because seeing their new lives was making me even more sad. That sounds really immature but at the time, it made me feel better. I've come to terms that I won't have my old friends back but that "What if?" feelings comes back sometimes.
I'm in the spring semester of my third year of college and I'm not really friends with anyone these days. I have friends, yeah, but I don't have friends that know me and understand how I work and vise versa. I've been more open with my feelings but every time I've tried to open up, I feel like they're not really interested. Or maybe they're not used to me sharing things and they're uncomfortable with my feelings. Either way, I feel like I'm bothering them so I go back to not sharing. I feel like I'm so out of practice when it comes to having close friends or maybe I just never learned how to have close friends and keep them. As someone who spends a lot of time alone, and likes spending time alone, this is the loneliest I've ever felt. I try to keep myself busy, that's why there's been a lot of posts lately, but that sinking feeling still lingers.
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Wow. I was just going to talk about feeling lonely but it turned into this. I'm not even going to bother reading it back to see if there are mistakes or if it even makes sense. This is how I feel and I'm going to leave it this way.
iscelle robee
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