Sad vs. lonely vs. low self esteem

It is universally known that girls like to talk about boys as much as we secretly wish boys are talking about us. Then you hear all these stories and you can't make heads or tails of ‘em and opinions that go totally against your impression. You know like, if you've ever flown and all your instruments are telling you you're going north, but everything in your mind and heart and body is telling you you're going down? This is how I feel when putting together an opinion of someone.

One I've lately gotten is that people confuse sadness with loneliness. »He is such a sad guy. She is really sad lately. I'm just so sad all the time. I don't have anybody to love me.« That's loneliness, people. Sad is when your dog or brother dies. Sad is when you hear 50 children drowned on a refugee boat. Sad is when you read your life’s work is unoriginal, bland and mediocre. That’s helpless, tired and defeated. That’s deep, deep, dark abyss of grief. Not having anyone to wake up to, that’s lonely. Why do you think anyone buys a sex toy worth a third of a normal paycheck?

As having very many relatives means you’ll be going to very many funerals all the time (fortunately not the case, in both directions), meeting many new people and being interested in their stories means, you’ll be meeting many single people - who hate being single. (Consequently it is remarked they’re very sad..) Okay, so I was single for the first 25 years of my life and then I married and then I married again, this time not a complete emotional fucking retard. But I’ve never ever been lonely. (I mean until the first time I married.) I never hated being alone. I never married because I didn’t want to be single. At the time it just felt like it would be cool to belong to someone.

A lot of times I hear people are so desperate to be in a relationship that the first chance they get, they throw everything on the table too soon… Like, when you haven’t gotten laid in a while and you want to impress someone giving you a chance, you show everything you can do in one go. Like an attention starved puppy. Like it’s considered tasteless to get too happy about finding someone you like. Like that’s an instant overdose of emotional responsibility – when really it’s just being grateful and excited and yourself.. (Of course I often feel I do this exact same thing when I make a new friend, but then again I’ve long ago learnt that if people aren’t able to get my passionate approach to everything all the time, they won’t really be able to adjust and tolerate me ever, so it’s better they grow apart early on.) This explosion of gratitude that ultimately drains the relationship, though, I’m beginning to think these are the people who expect all of their issues to magically disappear when they get involved with another human. (Or, you know, OS.) Their bodies will instantly become better looking, their interests will instantly become more inspirational, their job will become less annoying, their money problems will become  less pressing, their families will feel less like a constant battlefield, they’ll have someone in their corner..

Well, yeah, but … This isn’t a reason why you fall in love. Like Gatsby, building a palace around the assumption Daisy is perfect light. This is the stuff that happens when you are part of a pair, but loneliness is a shadow that can linger a decade into a happy marriage if you don’t know how to be happy on your own. How to face your own freaky issues.  I fucking adore my husband. I am addicted to him. I smoulder him. I call him fifty times a day. I buy him weird thing or, even worse, I make him weird things with my own hands and time. I watch him sleep. I secretly take photographs of him sleeping to look at when he’s away working. I write him letters on paper when he’s in school for the day. I wear his clothes because they smell like him. I arrange his collection of bullets on my shelves, even though he always gets angry. I make him pancakes. I talk to his shoes. “Hey, shoes. He left you behind as well, eh? No worries. He’ll be back soon. And don’t listen to slippers, bragging they’re still warm, because they’re just being aloof.”

Ye. I’m THAT nuts.

But these 9 hours he’s away … I love being alone. I always have. Not just alone, topless in the middle of the desert, a nobody and a God at the same time, pressed between the flatland and the skies like a bug in a book. That’s easy. Going to have coffees with myself, going to the movies by myself, walking by myself, sleeping by myself, learning about a funny story by myself with zero intention of telling it… Countless stories I invented and wrote down and read on my own. Being able to think my boobs are pretty fucking awesome on my own. They feel really good when I am having sex with myself.

Life is an overwhelming buffet of interesting things to admire. All of your head space occupied by desperately seeking Susan all the time... That’s just such a fucking waste of personality. And when you meet someone, sometimes it just feel right to plan hitchhiking to Greenland after an hour of knowing them. To some that’s freaky and unnatural, but … to the likes of us, it’s just refreshingly interesting and original. Unsupervised by friends who know everything. Unrehearsed.

There’s a guy I met lately that I think is cool. Dunno. He strikes me as cool. I want to keep him, because he can read. He lives alone. I like that. I though seem to be the only person to think that, because everybody else tells me he looks really sad. I don’t think he’s sad. I don’t think he’s sad at all. I met him a dozen times by now and I never got that impression his soul’s wailing. Lonely, sure. He probably wouldn’t mind a rest from being reminded of his empty hands every time he sees happy couples around him smooch. I assume. I don’t know. It seems everyone else but me is bothered about being single. Fuck me if I know why people nearing forties are so biologically codependent. But I keep looking at his photos and trying to find deep sadness in his eyes and I just can’t see it. I see stories and thoughts. I want to listen to him talk, because I think he has interesting things to say. I never got the impression he’s on a verge of starting to whine about his miserable, unfulfilled existence because one of the five hundred and seventy eleven fucking chakras in the social standard of regularity is lacking ... Having fade indigo eyes isn't melancholy by association - I know plenty people with huge blue eyes who are plenty perky. I dunno. I just like him. I meet several people I like lately. I can’t understand why they wouldn’t be happy on their own. Like happiness is a burden to be lifted and carried by a multitude.

And then of course people have shitty days, because, let’s face it, when I have a shitty day, I throw all of the things I mentioned above into my husband about how fucking lonely I am for having to go to the movies by myself, throw some other things at him, howl for half an hour, pack my things and move into the bathtub with the dog.  

Ye. I’m THAT normal.