human connection

We’ll begin with a thesis statement: there’s a lot of empowerment discourse centered around the self; you are the only thing you actually have, which is based around control and autonomy and being able to exert influence over your own life and facilitate your own happiness. It’s a comforting thought. It feels good to say: “I can control this”. But what if I postulate that one of the most fulfilling things about being alive is forming connections with other people? It’s really something that you can’t control at all, because you can’t make other people love you, which is where the crisis begins. You can’t really make yourself love yourself either, but you can at least pretend. Whereas other people are terrifying and totally unpredictable, because you can’t know what they are thinking. Other people lie and mask and want and use and I want them all to love me so badly.

A brief history of my life (don’t worry I’m going to bring this all back around to a lesson eventually, but I’m also not going to pretend this whole thing isn’t just glorified me time so strap in). I don’t think I had any true friends growing up. I definitely kept more to myself. I don’t think I was shy and I remember feeling a pull to connect with people, but I was definitely anxious and still am to some extent.

I had a lot of acquaintances and it felt like people generally liked me. But there was never anyone that I was genuinely close to. Anything approaching a close friendship that I would eventually have wouldn’t be until early high school. And then came the later years of high school where I made friends somehow—like fully a group of friends, which was something I had literally never experienced before. And again I wouldn’t say I was especially close to all of them, but we got along and the feeling of being physically surrounded by people was new and exciting.

But then for some reason I was just done. During online school, I began slowly isolating myself. Not intentionally, I think. Honestly I don’t even know what really happened but basically I woke up on my 16th birthday like: who are my friends? Where are they? What have I actually done over the past 4 years? I wrote stories and stuff but who cares? I’m joking obviously, I care a lot. But I mean in terms of memories and meaningful relationships and moments distinguishable from one another and not just identical. Days lost to the interminable current of time. And it’s weird because I’m a huge introvert.

My most valuable experiences when it comes to learning things and honestly just feeling alive and like a member of the human race all happened when I’ve been with people. And don’t get me wrong, I have a rich internal world. Some may say too rich. I talk to myself all day long and as someone who has spent the better part of her life aspiring herself that she’ll never have to rely on anyone else for anything and who plans on moving to another continent on a whim a couple months before she turns 18 just to see what will happen. I’ve always really valued independence. Independence is a preclusion and I don’t know why or when I decided that it was. In any case, the binding thread throughout that rather verbose tale of woe is that I’ve always found it really difficult to build standing meaningful relationships with people. And I’m not really sure why.

Actually, I think about this often. I know there are deep, interesting people in the world, but I don't know how to find them or talk to them. I am also aware that I said that I have created my most valuable relationships, but if I were to be completely honest, I don’t find any of them truly fulfilling.

I guess it’s for a couple reasons. This might get a little bleak and honest, which coincidentally is my main reason. I don’t trust anyone personally. I think that’s one of the main issues. I always assume I’m not anyone’s priority even though I often go out of my way to make everyone else my priority, which is not the best thing for myself. I also have a weird robot brain that can’t decide what is okay to say or share and I’m really scared of saying too much so I tend to tear on the side of not saying anything at all, which I’m sure you can imagine, is not a substantial basis to build a close friendship upon.

Sometimes I feel like I’m just saying lines. Like I’m not actually saying anything besides some weird curated version of my actual thoughts and then I’m like “Maybe that’s what everyone does.” But I don’t think everyone does that. I’ve genuinely never felt like I actually fit in. I’ve come close to that, I guess, but it’s so hard to cross that intimacy. Is there a moment where you’re supposed to realize: “oh, you’re close to me”?

And I recognize the irony in writing this whole spiel revealing these quite intimate truths, but yeah. I get really uncomfortable when stuff gets too real and I also tend to be a bit aloof and I think people will assume that means I’m not into it. I don’t think I’m clingy either. When people give me a hint I tend to take it. It’s like all of those things combined (I sound like the worst person ever. I swear I have some redeeming qualities about myself). Like I need something that feels exhaustive but not smothering. I want to be comfortably encompassed but not constantly superficially around.

I didn't notice earlier how I never seem to have a very strong connection with people. And I attribute that to my war against any emotional situations. Being vulnerable to people and really talking to them about things in my life is really hard, considering all the problems I have with anxiety and my thoughts. It's really hard letting people into your heart, when all there's to see are bad things. It's hard but I think we have to just let ourselves be seen how we really are, with the people we trust. And also trust people a little bit more, maybe they'll surprise us.

So, I recently had a breakthrough with this issue or at least became very self-aware of something similar after a conversation with a friend. I have a wall between myself and my friends, even the ones I consider closest to me because I had this "independence is reclusion" kind of a thesis statement for my childhood. While intellectually, I understood that wasn't the case, I've had a really hard time opening up to people. I say the wrong things, I change opinions a lot, I'm fickle about how I feel about people I talk to, and I didn't feel like a priority so I subconsciously didn't trust people to care. With a lot of people I feel like an alternate option or an afterthought, when I want to be a priority.

I heard a quote that said “the human experience is a shared one and people connect at the point of pain”. So what I decided for myself was to suck up the discomfort I feel when my friends probe about me and suck up the lack of pit in my stomach when I wanna try to connect with someone I haven't talked to in a while. I decided to force myself to act despite the rain drowning out my social needs.

It’s weirdly comforting to know that a lot of people feel sad. And I feel kind of selfish in saying that, but it’s nice to see that misery does love company. We are connecting to nature; most of us live like rats stacked on top of each other, breathing in the toxins of modern cities, eating food that keeps us in a constant state of inflammation and that opens us up for sickness and spiritual death. We are sick and we need to start loving from within first.

I pass a good amount of people a day and I’m like who are all of you people? Could I care for you? How many of you could I love? I might be overestimating the amount of people I could actually be close to which is simultaneously comforting and makes it even worse. It might be a hundred a day. It might be none. I’m honestly not sure. That being said, that thought has made all of my past relationships feel all the more valuable. Lately I found myself wanting to go back and say: “hey I spent a bit of my life with you and I think that’s important and it’s weird to never talk to you again”. Getting to know people and really connecting with someone is hard, you can't expect to have a good friend randomly. Every relationship is special because they're made up from the ground, people grow apart and that's where you need to choose a path of acceptance. For some people it's hard, it's weird actually suddenly not growing together with someone you have a bond with. It makes you feel lonely and unappreciated. I guess just any sort of real thing with anyone is so rare and I’ve realized that maybe this whole thing made me so nervous in the first place because I always knew it was important, like it was some phenomenon I couldn’t quite parse but I knew I wanted more of and I was scared of ruining things and I convinced myself that because it makes me nervous. I should just get rid of that feeling. But that’s not how things work.

During this past year I think I’ve created some of my most valuable relationships. I’ve been in most of them for a long time, but I’ve taken the effort to develop them to as close to their maximum potential as possible only recently. I can’t really tell what exactly took them to the next level, but it’s definitely not a formula; it differs for every person. I’ve only realized the importance of truly connecting with someone once I actually had it. It’s hard to see how important something can hypothetically be if you’ve never had it before. Without true human connection, I don’t think I would have been able to reach the mental space I am.

When you boil it down, really this whole experience is a lonely dead end. I mean, no one dies with us. So what is the point? Why is this something I have decided I need so badly right now? Honestly I feel like I’ve already wasted time and people, and time with people. I think it’s fair to say that it’s not quite as trivial as: “I feel like I don’t do enough on the weekends”. When I arrive at the end of my life, I want to know that I’ve loved so much and that I’ve been so loved and that I spent my time on earth enjoying my own company, sure, but also that I’ve made it through in camaraderie with the only other beings I will ever encounter who have any semblance of understanding of what it’s like to be looking out the window on this absolute nonsense train journey towards oblivion. I want to have looked as many of them in the eyes as I could and have said to them that I will never, ever truly know what they’re thinking. But I understand. And I hope that they understand. And that maybe, in the pursuit of making sense of ourselves and of making sense of any of this, the most important resource we have is each other. And maybe that’s why I’m so desperate to find as many things that are real enough to hold in my hands as I can.

Desire is the root of pain, at least that's what I tell myself, and what I’ve drawn from Buddhist philosophy. If I could just stop wanting connection, I wouldn't be lonely. Between problem, and solution, the best solution is no solution at all.

But in actuality, I think we honestly devalue the importance of human connection. We place such value on the self, but sometimes we neglect the connections we have with people. A single person can change your entire life. Good or bad. I think that’s absolutely beautiful. Life is temporary. People are temporary. We all die at some point. When you realize that everything is temporary, you start to live in the present and appreciate it more.