lonely.

I’ve always secretly been an extremely lonely person. Ever since I was a kid, none of my classmates wanted to be around me. I was weird. I was fun to pick on. I never had many friends, and the ones I did have were like me, and they didn’t fit in either, and they were ultimately short-lived.

It plagues me to this day. I only have three friends I would consider ‘close’, and even then I don’t feel as though they really get me. They only see a fraction of myself and the rest I keep hidden away, for fear that if I show someone my belly, allow myself to be truly vulnerable, they’ll strike me where it hurts the most.

It hurts. It feels like I have no human connections. I don’t remember the last time I was hugged. It must have been at the airport with my mom back in February… it’s late April now. I talk frequently with Marcy and Sebastian, but it always feels like I’m hiding things from them, and we don’t enjoy things together like we used to, staying up until the late hours of the night watching anime through a screen.

Frost and I play Final Fantasy XIV when we can, and he treats me gently; t even feels like he respects me as a person. Believes in me. But it’s hard to schedule things, and sometimes we go more than a week without really talking.

Everything feels tense with Sebastian. Ever since he… broke things off, as it were, it feels strained. It’s like that John Mulaney bit where he says, like, ‘anyone who’s seen my dick and met my parents needs to die.’ It feels wrong going back to friendship after the weeks he spent flirting with me again, doubly so after what we shared when I was in town over Thanksgiving. It almost makes me regret starting my transition, that maybe if I didn’t, he would still want something with me. 

It hurts. I want to connect with people. I want people to enjoy being around me, and I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. Why people don’t stick around for long. It makes me feel like I’m broken. There was this quote I think about: “Shyness is the feeling that other people aren’t lacking in company”, or something along those lines. I resonate with that. Because no one will ever choose me over their other friends. And why should they? I’m not interesting. I’m not smart, or good at video games, or particularly sociable. I’m good at getting lost in my knitting. Good at hyperfocusing on a project or TV series. Good at getting drunk and scrolling through Reddit while everyone else is asleep, because for a couple hours I can forget about my worries.

It hurts. I want to have friends, friends with common interests who I can enjoy things with. But there’s something stopping me. Or something that stops everyone else. And it really, really hurts.

I want to move to Orlando already so I can start fresh. Meet new people. Maybe find someone who can stand to be around me. Because I’m so, so tired of feeling like I’m bothering everyone anytime I want to do something with them.

But that’s the thing, right? I keep trying to start over. And every time, it plagues me. It’s me that’s the problem, not the place I’m in or the people I meet or the things I do. It’s me.