Why I Prefer Being Alone [Writer's Journal]

Maybe I was just born a curmudgeon, but I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t prefer to be alone. Every time I was a kid and I went to a slumber party, or a play date, I’d get this headache. This kind of pulsing, thought-eliminating ache that drilled into my temples. And I couldn’t wait to get home, to get to my typewriter, or my computer, or my books. Being alone had this exhilarating freedom that I really couldn’t get in the presence of other people. When I was with other people, I had to cater to their demands, focus my attention on them. I felt trapped by expectation. Headache as a warning sign.

Yeah, I know, I’m maladjusted. I have attachment issues. Someone shoved my face into the dark shadows and said, DRINK UP KID. People use affection like a velvet hammer. I heard normal people don’t come home crying after a night out because they feel like there is a thick shroud separating them from the rest of the human race. I’ve read about this. Maybe it’s because I have reduced volume in my hippocampus. Or the neurons aren’t firing properly, something to do with reduced synapse strength. Abnormal cortisal levels. An overworked amygdala, which means I’m constantly stressed out.

Have you tried antidepressants, Autumn? Have you tried yoga? Maybe you would stop going out to bars and gnawing on your arm like you’ve been caught in a bear trap, if you did some yoga.

Have you tried being someone else?

It’s not just because I’m frightened. I thought for a long time that if I only acclimated myself, soothed my anxiety, I’d find enjoyment in others. And I do - sometimes - but they are like fragmentary moments, a single color picked out of a kaleidoscope. I have to focus in on it, or the color runs out. Sometimes I can even have a good night out, but I have to put all my intention into it, all my energy, into forcing a particular state of mind.

It’s difficult for me to describe why it bothers me so much, being around other people. (You can even tell it’s difficult, because the next few paragraphs aren’t very concise) For a long time I thought it was because something was horribly wrong with me. And don’t get me wrong, there is. But it’s more than that.

It’s not just the games, or the polite lies, or the stupidity. It’s a bullheaded insistence that other people cater to the games, or the polite lies, or the stupidity. If someone is being an asshole, or obnoxious and rude, here comes the handwaving. “Oh, he’s a nice guy.” When really all that person is doing is putting extra pressure and stress on everyone else, who feel obligated to take it for… what reason? Because it’s polite? Because they’re scared? Because it’d make them bad people, or not compassionate enough, to put up with someone else’s bad behavior?

And god forbid you don’t want to drink, or you stare off into space for twenty seconds, or you don’t take that bite of food they offered, or you don’t answer a question the way someone wants you to answer it. It’s like in socialization we’ve all become complicit in a game where we have to interweave upon each other, trying to exert our influence, trying to manipulate others in soft and hard ways. Why? To feel good about ourselves. To feel valued and appreciated. To get that girl to have sex with you. But in such a way, in that everyone has to orbit around each other’s bullshit.

Don’t you dare tell someone you don’t want to hear about their fucking juice cleanse or their guardian angel or their gluten free diet or their ideas about Donald Trump. That makes YOU the asshole, not the person who’s trying to force you to smile and swallow shit.

I know at least one person who reads this is thinking, “That’s just the way it is, grow up.”

Yeah, shut up. Just the fact that I’m writing this means that other modes of being are possible.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask that I want something real.

It’s funny though, when I say I want to talk about something real - most people assume I’m only interested in talking about death, or metaphysics, or literature, or other ‘serious’ topics. When most people just use those topics as another way to push their bravado, or appear to project a certain kind of personality. I am not interested in SERIOUS things. I am interested in GENUINE things. And genuine things are often silly and irreverent. Bullshit has a very difficult time surviving when it’s exposed to laughter.

And there exists people that I want to be around. Sometimes I’ll meet someone who seems like they’re so brilliant and alive, they’re going to burn up from the inside. And I want to lay in the golden glow, so the dark moon that is me will be illuminated. But I can count the amount of times that’s happened on my fingers. Probably only one hand.

The sheer amount of nonsense I’ve had to wade through to find people like that, has made me exhausted. Has it been worth it? I’m not sure. Obviously I want human connection, or I wouldn’t be so angry about this.

I am tired of people who feel I need to justify myself to them
Of listening to narcissists tell me their life story
Feeling the need to be clever or worthy
Going on dates that reminds me of a magician’s show at the Renaissance fair
Not being allowed to be myself
I am tired of people trying to force their opinions on me
Forcing their FOOD on me, as if their ego was attached to me eating a damn french fry
Being treated as an asshole for calling out people for being an asshole
The dance of trying to be an acceptable human being
Not stirring the waters
To be a human being like a pond that’s been overlaid with scum, so that people can’t see you all the way to the bottom
I’m tired of not feeling like anything is real
I am tired of being an object to soothe other people’s insecurities
Of feeling like a sideshow freak, or something built for other’s amusement
Of feeling like I need to bare my teeth and smile just to survive

I want to peel back the skin
I want things to be honest, and kind, and real.

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First self portrait by me iphone SE
Self portrait by me canon t51

Some of my other posts you may be interested in:
[Journal] A Monster Wants To Be A Girl // Healing From PTSD
Nine Things I Learned From Reading A Lot Of Books
[Short Story] CrystalMouth: An Excerpt from My Book Ecstatic Inferno
[Short Story] The Azalea Girl and Her Paingod
[Fictional Memoir] In The Palace of Bones & Champagne
How to Have Fun Writing Again
[Journal] How I Broke Through The Barrier of Dreams // Cognitive and Disassociation Techniques
[Short Story] You Don't Get To Fall In Love