loneliness and phm thoughts

there is this deep and unexplainable ache i get in my chest whenever i think about grace's life on earth. something about his permanent loneliness hits so close to home. all he ever wanted was to be loved for who he was, to be understood, wholly, by someone he could trust. i find that this exact need for connection is something so deeply human, so basic in our nature. yet it gets increasingly harder to find those connections. i myself have come to live with the underlying loneliness that seems to follow me wherever i go. no matter how many friends i have, how many people i talk to, i return to that loneliness regularly. perhaps it is a side effect of growing up with depression. i have started to feel comfortable in said loneliness, even though i try time and time again to escape it.

 this is something i see reflected in ryland grace as a character. he has lived 30 odd years without ever truly finding someone to connect to. he tried escaping his loneliness by constantly surrounding himself with people, his students, drowning himself in work, giving himself barely enough time to think. this is one of the most common coping mechanisms of loneliness, avoidance. because as long as you dont acknowledge the problem, it doesnt exist.

the one time he felt a genuine connection (tbf it was still very professional) to Eva Stratt, she betrayed him. and humanity betrayed him along with it, since Stratt was the strongest connection to his own kind. he held Stratt as a representative of the whole, and so viewed her decision as humanity's decision. 

grace was never even given an chance to say goodbye. it felt like his own planet abandoned him entirely.

now, he solved his issue by meeting an alien. for obvious reasons, that isnt something i can reproduce lol. in my own life, all i can really do is to keep trying to make new friends, in hopes of finding that genuine connection. unfortunately, it does also take years for me to finally open up and feel safe in the company of another person. and until i do truly open up, i wont know if they accept me fully. i find that to be the life-cycle of most of my friendships these days. i start feeling comfortable, i talk about my interests for hours at a time, they tell me it gets to much, and tell me i am exhausting. it hurts. i would never tell someone to stop talking about the things they love. the world is already such a miserable place, so why should i take away their freedom of enjoying things? i love listening to people talk about their interests, since i love seeing people be passionate about something. if said interest involves a game, a book, a movie, or even music, who am i to judge? if they find their joy in something i personally hold no interest in, eg. sports or something, i would still listen to them talk. their interest in it is enough to spark my own.

 i just wish i could find someone who would do the same for me. i have yet to meet them, hence i am dumping everything here. i have no one who is willing to listen to me talk about the same topic over and over, so i will keep posting into the void, where i know i wont be judged.