Entropy

Nobody likes me.

I’ll explain. One of the big lies that most of us know from childhood is that if you be yourself, acceptance and friendship are sure to follow. We don’t usually question this up front, but anybody who takes the time to break this cliche down finds that it’s patently absurd. People want to be friends with people who are like them. If you’re yourself, and yourself is somebody fundamentally different from others in a number of essential ways, just who exactly is going to want to be friends with you?

I’m not saying that I can’t get along with people, I’m fine at that. Nor do I not have or have had friends. The problem is that, if you’re unlike others, if you like different things or have different values, any friendship or relationship you begin is going to collapse sooner or later.

For me, this began around high school. In grade school I had a few friends, but as freshman year wore on, they all found their various niches, be they in drama, jocks, nerds, what have you. I however, never found such a clique. I never found the people who I could I be comfortable around. I’d find a circle here and there, even made a new friend or two. But sooner or later the point would come where I would call and couldn’t reach them.

At first you begin to rationalize that this will change once you move to a different social setting. When I was in grade school I figured things would change in high school. Once it became clear this wouldn’t happen there, I looked to college. Etc. etc.

Recently, it’s finally begun to sink in. My group, my gang, doesn’t exist. There isn’t a group of people who will accept me for who I am, will stick by me, who won’t drift away once they find people who are easier to deal with. Every friendship or relationship I start is doomed to failure because of who I am, or who I’m not.

I spend a lot of days feeling as though I barely even exist. I walk around downtown and see people talking with their friends about the things they all like to talk about. I walk around and feel like a ghost, like a cipher, like the entire world is going on without me and I all I can do is watch.

This is also a problem with my family. My relationship with my parents has barely budged from the impasse it reached in my early teens, when it became clear that although I’m clearly the result of these people, there’s almost nothing else that seems to link me to them. Genuine conversations between us are rare. It’s more we’re talking at each other rather than with. Because what do we have to talk about, what common ground do we have? And unlike all of those friends who have gone on to easier, more digestible relationships, I’m forever tethered to these people. All I can do is go through the motions of being their son. It’s something that has to be performed rather than something that simply happens.

Even when I find that rare person with whom I have a genuine connection, and I think that I’ve finally found someone who I can trust, it inevitably dissolves just like it always does. It’s a problem with no answer, because the problem is me. And as long as I’m me it will stay a problem.

Not that I blame anyone. By any standard I am not an easy person to grasp or understand. Half the time even I don’t get me, or even like me. There are days when I can’t even stand to look at myself in a mirror, knowing all I’m going to see is that same detestable loser staring back.

So what do you do? How do you keep finding reasons to keep going when you can never quite banish the thought that your existence is either a cruel joke or a terrible mistake? What is there even to move towards when it becomes clear that the big problem is one you won’t solve?