On Being Lonely

 I've rarely ever struggled to make friends. Only in the deepest pits of depression soon before transitioning when my body was dying around me did it feel almost impossible, and even then I made plenty. No, what plagues me isn't some general inability to 'meet people' but rather a struggle to derive meaning from being around them. What does it mean to be friends with someone you hardly speak to, or with whom most talk feels meaningless and inane. There is definitely value to the friends you see only occasionally of course, all people and all connections are valuable, but these connections cannot themselves fulfill me, they do not occupy the many empty hours of the day, or fill the mental and emotional spaces I have. Only a few periods in my life have I fully experienced intersubjectivity on a regular basis, the sense that I was experiencing a really mutual communication, that I was existing on the same plane as another person, that I was fulfilled by their presence, and that they were not just online but physically with me, and able to fulfill all the extra physical comfort that entails.

 Years of efforts have made me a better person to be around, and yet the status quo for me feels much the same: I spend most of my time just bored. A lot of that boredom is probably attributable to ADHD, as I struggle to find interest in most things, especially on a scope large enough for me to feel entertained or truly engaged on a moment to moment or day to day basis. Instead I fulfill that need for activity with the stress of work and other things, allowing adrenaline and cortisol keep me feeling alive by crushing myself under intellectual endeavors. But I get tired. I get bored and tired. I lose focus. Even the best subjects can't occupy me forever, and at the end of every day I find myself bored and lonely and unfilfilled. 

The weirdest part is that when I spend too much time with a person then all I want is to be alone, to be away from them and alone. I have yet to find any balance that works on a long term, I've never had the opportunity to try. I'm spending another Saturday as I've spent many Saturdays: bored, in bed, lonely, confused about what I want, craving stimulation of some kind but finding all available prospects dull, and feeling miasmically disappointed with everything.

I say all this not out of a desire to be negative towards myself, I don't think this is a failing of my own creation, I'm just reflecting. ADHD medications would help, but it's practically not worth pursuing a diagnosis and prescription considering that I have heart problems already and no psychiatrist would prescribe them to me, not to mention RFK jr is about to ban them all anyways. I'm stuck always feeling somewhat less alive than I want to be, and I don't see many ways out. Meeting more people helps, but it's not enough to know someone, you have to know them to the point of operating on the same human plane, and that's proven much harder to accomplish. But, here's to more chances and renewed efforts anyways.