And it's been like this my whole life. Throughout my existence, I constantly feel as if I'm too detached from everyday life — too much of an analyzer to immerse myself in it without feeling like "I'm acting". I've always been the second option for the people I've grown close to. I've also been taken for granted and have felt generally unloved and left out. Upon meeting new people, I find myself feeling slow and awkward — sweaty hands, a thick tongue, my voice echoes in my ears as I simply try to speak. So I quit speaking because the words never sound quite right as I say them. I feel weird, I feel wrong. I think everyone else can see it too. The whole experience is as sort of drowning. The isolation occupies my lungs up so full that I cannot breathe. It's both an emptiness and all-consuming suffocation. I feel so consumed by the shame of my situation that I find myself forgotten how to interact with other people on the few opportunities I get to be around them. I avoid seeing old friends even when I want to see them, even when I'm secretly craving connection. When I'm alone, I begin to have crazy thoughts. Strange thoughts. And when I'm alone, I'll do anything not to be alone. I went on social media for hours, binge-watched Netflix and Youtube videos, read books or Medium entries, played with my cats, did house chores. I used to bear a lot of resentment towards people who I wanted to be friends with but never made an effort to be friends with me. Especially those on social media platforms. And here I am putting myself out there just like everyone else. Every time I saw my friends hanging out through their Instagram stories and Whatsapp status, I wondered why did all these people have such deep connections and I was left desiring?

My social skills suffer. It's unavoidable that people will have their opinions about me. My friends always wonder why I can't snap out of it. I also wonder why I can't snap out of it. People talk about social anxiety as if it's only nervousness. Like something I can just practice away. They don't see how it's an honest symptom of my pain. Or how the loneliness is capable of destroying me in more ways than one. I had people telling me that I'm not alone. They said things like how they're in the same boat as me and that they've been right where I am. And I kinda knew that they're lying as soon as they started telling me on what I should or shouldn't feel. Among certain types of people, my reputation is ruined. They think I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Loneliness isn't feeling like I don't really know anyone but it's feeling like nobody could really know me. I'm not all sunshine and rainbows. I suffer because I don't realize how negative I sound. If I speak about being lonely, there will be people who judge me for it. People who not only think my feelings are all in my head, but also who take offense to my cries. As if my pain points a finger out of them.

However, I didn't realize that my loneliness is mainly my fault. 

Most of us are lonely and a social misfit in this world. Nobody cares for anyone except for our parents (well, up to a certain age). But so few of us are willing to do anything about it. Every relation is based on some expectations in return. People care because they expect. We're actually really self-absorbed if we look at it. We think everyone should invite us somewhere. That they should take our feelings into consideration when they might not even have a clue as to how we're feeling. We expect them to be mind readers and to revolve around our every need and feed the friendship. I come to realize now that it was all about me. And here I am wondering why I'm lonely. The reason why is because I'm not a friend worth having. Friendship is hard because it's not something we just fall into. It has to be fought for. We have to climb our way into people's lives and most of us are willing to give up at the drop of a dime. They didn't call back? Good riddance. So I continue to grow lonelier and resentful when all people are really asking is if I'm worthy of being a friend worth fighting for. And sadly for most of us, we claim that this relationship is one-sided. That it's all about me and my needs. Keeping up an actual friendship and to be someone worth knowing requires real human interaction. However, it's an unfortunate reality that often relationships do change and friendships deteriorate and people drift apart. It becomes more commonplace the older I get and I've become repeatedly hurt by these realities. A lot of the time it doesn't have to do with us, it's just how people's priorities and world views change. There is one advice for us from the oldest philosophical wisdom which is to know ourselves. Without recognizing ourselves, it's almost impossible to find a healthy way to interact with the world around us. Being alone and connecting inwardly is a skill nobody ever teaches us but learned through ourselves.