It gets really bad at night.

There's a very anxiety inducing kind of melancholy that I often feel. Things I should have said but didn't, people I could have met but didn't, people who I could have made proud but disappointed, places I could've gone to but now never will. The vestiges of it all build up until I can't ignore it any longer and then it hits me at once. These are probably the only times I ever cry these days.

I would describe myself as an underdeveloped human being. For a multitude of reasons I've only been a human being for the last 5 years or so, everything previous to that was spent wallowing in my own misery in my room. Not even an exaggeration. Back during one of my worse periods I went a whole summer without showering or going out even once. Just this last week I've gone out maybe once or twice. It's pathetic.

The thing is tho, I used to think I wanted this. I used to always tell myself that no, people do like me I'm just uhm not interested! And so I made this whole narrative about myself, about how I much prefer being left alone and handle stuff on my own, how relationships aren't my thing, and how going out during weekends is lame.

Now, of course, the truth of the matter was much simpler, people just did not want me around. I've never been delusional about the reason, it's my personality. Like yes okay me being ugly as shit doesn't help but ugly people get to lead pretty meaningful lives, don't they? Yes, but for me I always knew there was something about the things I said, the way I carried myself and the way I interacted with people that rubbed them wrong.

Heard it from everyone. I remember this one time I was being annoying as a kid, can't even remember what I was doing or saying, and an aunt said that "this was the reason I didn't have friends". Whoa, how'd she know?!

I was, or tried to be, the funny kid all the way up to high school. I was mostly happy playing that role. I'm not a very agreeable person so it was just a nice way of purposely annoying teachers. At some point I just thought I'd lean into being an asshole if nobody was going to like me either way.

Well, one time, during one of my classroom heckling sessions, one of the teachers got mad as fuck. Told everyone to be quiet, looked at me and asked me to look around. Said everybody in that room was only laughing to be nice, and that none of them found me funny. Who the fuck says that to a kid?

And so, you know, you hear it from your family, you hear it from your teachers, you hear it even from some of the very few people you thought were your friends and you think: well shit they must be right.

So next time you hear there's a birthday coming up, you don't even bother to ask if you can come, nobody invited you after all.

And when someone even tries talking to you you get quiet and think nobody REALLY wants to hear you talk they are just being nice.

And so you become invisible to everybody. And you go on with your life, going into school to talk to no one, coming home to play with no one, and going to bed on a Friday night without a single text asking you to hang out.

I never quite realized this until fairly recently, but people do NOT perceive me the same way I do myself. They only know what I show them. When your closest friends only see you maybe 3 weeks out of the whole year you start asking yourself how much other people really know you, because at the end of the day this directly dictates how much of a shit they give about you.

I could spray the ceiling with my brains and nobody would hear from it for 2 months at least.

Because legacy matters in relationships, and so does how much you commit to the relationship. In my mind it's all well and good if I don't share or commit too much to a friendship, but my mistake historically has been deluding myself into thinking this means I should expect to hear from them once they don't have to pretend to like me. I understand it now.

The idea that I chose to be alone all those nights is a delusion as well. I just fed myself lies to keep me from going insane and giving into the idea that this was all my fault, I wasn't misunderstood or a victim of anything. I came into this world too broken to be of any comfort to anybody.

But then I got a taste for it, somewhat. People who maybe got me, and who I felt I was interested in. And you realize people weren't so scary after all, but then that sinking feeling starts to creep in. The voice that starts whispering in your ear to tell you about the years and years you wasted by being who you are. The opportunities and the experiences you will never get back because they are so fundamentally tied to specific periods of time in your life. Teen love. First kisses. Awkward high school nights. Curbside beers with people you didn’t have to plan around. Meeting your people. Making stories to tell.

And it's gone.

So I'm stuck. What I thought I wanted was nothing but misdirecte self pity. And now that I actually want people and try to reach out, nobody ever reaches out back. And at this point I don't have much to offer then anyway, I can't sit here and tell you with a straight face I'm very interestign to talk ot, or that I'm a great storyteller, or even that I'm funny. Just a complete waste of time. Bitterness is all I feel now. At myself and at whoever made me like this.