envy and misery

I get filled with envy and misery every time I see someone with friends who actually take the time to know them—people who remember the little things, check in without being asked, and make each other feel like they matter. There’s something painful about watching someone be genuinely cherished when you’ve spent so much time wondering what it would feel like to be someone’s first choice. I want to be special to someone. I want to feel like my presence makes a difference, like someone would notice if I wasn’t there.

Instead, I often feel like I’m the person people come to when they have nobody else. I’m the temporary shelter, the person they trust with their problems, their secrets, their sadness. They tell me everything because they know I have no one else to tell. And as much as I care about people, sometimes it hurts to realize that being needed isn’t always the same as being loved. I don’t want to only be useful. I want to be remembered when someone is happy, too. I want to be the person someone thinks of when they have something beautiful to share, not just when they need somewhere to put their pain.

Sometimes I feel like I’m wasting away my teenage years by being lonely and envious. Everyone says these are supposed to be the years where you make memories, find your people, and experience the kind of friendships you’ll remember forever. But what happens when you’re watching those memories happen from the outside? What happens when you start wondering if something about you is fundamentally wrong because, after all this time, you still haven’t been anyone’s first choice?

I don’t even know why I feel so... weird sometimes. Maybe I’m too distant. Maybe I overthink everything. Maybe I expect connections to mean more than other people do. Or maybe I’ve just been trying to find my people in places where they were never meant to be found. I don’t know. It’s difficult not to turn loneliness into a reflection of your worth. When you’re constantly overlooked, it becomes easy to wonder if there’s something about you that makes you difficult to choose.

But then there’s another side of me that finds peace in being alone. And that’s the part that confuses me the most.

I like having my own space. I like disappearing into my thoughts, listening to music, creating things, and existing without having to constantly explain myself. Sometimes solitude feels less like loneliness and more like freedom. I don’t always want people around me. I don’t want to be consumed by someone else’s life, and I don’t want my entire sense of happiness to depend on whether someone decides to stay.

Maybe that’s the contradiction I’ve been struggling with: I want to be deeply connected to someone, but I don’t want to lose myself in the process. I want someone to choose me, but I also want the freedom to choose myself. I want closeness without feeling suffocated, affection without obligation, and companionship without having to sacrifice the quiet parts of myself that I’ve grown comfortable with.

Maybe I’m not actually asking for too much. Maybe I’m just asking for something that is difficult to find: a connection where two people can say, I want you in my life, without saying, I need you to become my entire life.

Until then, I’m trying to learn that being alone doesn’t automatically mean being unwanted. Maybe solitude can be a place where I grow instead of a place where I wait. I still want to be someone’s first choice someday. I still want to be cherished, understood, and known beyond the surface. But I also want to become someone who doesn’t need to be chosen by another person to believe that I am worth choosing. I want someone to make space for me in their life. But, for now, I’m learning how to make space for myself.

I love being a lonely geek sometimes ( ｡ •̀ ᵕ •́ ｡), but I still need someone "( – ⌓ – )=3

Another thing, I have opportunities to connect deeper with people but sometimes I get too scared to let anyone truly know me? I also try to ignore parts of me that are wrong as well.