This lonely asshole.

I'm not the most social person. But I don't like being alone. Alone is just my default. So I've moved to Berkeley to go to school, and honestly I'm about as lonely as I've ever been. I've been here over a month. I have met with people 3 times in these 5 weeks. I'm about to start school, and I just don't feel ready.

I wanted one cool day with friends or family this summer. I asked people over and over to come visit, told them I'd pick them up, I'd pay for everything. All I want is some company. I'm not agoraphobic, but I do have trouble enjoying going to new places alone. I don't like eating out alone, I don't like visiting places alone. Biking I suppose is one activity I love doing alone, but I don't have a bike.

Anyway, nevermind anything else. I am feeling like absolute shit right now because I begged my brother to come visit for a month, tried to negotiate my friend who's only a couple towns over to come by, and it's just not happening.

Am I really that big an asshole? I tried reconnecting with a lot of people via Facebook. In the last few weeks I've been having bad luck. I would see one of my cousins joking with her friends all the time and when I tried to joke with her a little she got really offended. I couldn't rectify it. No matter what I wrote she just kept jumping on me and getting offended even when I apologized repeatedly for a bad joke. My other cousin refused to even communicate. Another person I reconnected with took offense with something (maybe my Facebook posts) decided to just drop me instead of saying anything. I understand if people have nothing to say to each other, but to end things like that. To end things the way my best friend did, I don't understand that.

I suppose it all goes back to my best friend. One day he just dropped me. No explanation. Maybe in his mind I should understand why. But I don't know, in a long string of me wondering how insane I must be, we were friends since 1st grade. How can you just poof! drop someone. Not even a warning. The rift was not a new one. We'd have theology debates. These weren't one sided, he would call me up, with his wife, and debate me on the phone. I pointed out something which I think is horrific in the bible, and bam he drops me. Maybe I was out of line. But really a 20 year friendship ended without a fucking chance of redemption over a biblical quote?

I wonder, I must be the insane one because no one seems to be willing to call me the asshole. They just walk away. Maybe it takes an asshole to call someone an asshole, and even then usually two assholes who get along don't bother to point that kind of shit out. I know I've pissed my father off to no end. But this is rather unique. And my dad has never been silent on the issue.

To me, it just doesn't seem fair. A lot of these situations seem to stem from people being insecure, and involve me being too overbearing, or too forward, or too something, I don't know, people won't tell me. The reason I say it seems unfair is because I don't know anyone with lower self esteem or social insecurity than myself. I know people say they're insecure. A lot of people say that while being the most social, overt, popular. These people are morons. And we all know they're dead wrong. Everyone experiences anxiety, and honestly I can see how someone extremely social and popular might have more social anxiety by gross weight, but like Einstein sort of said, their problems aren't like my problems.

I just wish I could talk to someone intellectually. I feel like shit right now. Man. I gave up thinking I'd ever been some "normal" social being but I never thought I'd become a pariah.

Obviously school's about to start, but school for me has never been a social benefit. I just finished up at community college only having talked to 4 or 5 people. Seriously. Maybe 6 people. Short conversations. I'm just not good socially at all. It is a great struggle. And I've come to realize the more silent I am, the fewer enemies I make.

Before I went off to bootcamp many years ago, my former life long best friend's mom said something to me that one might have taken as an insult, certainly if I wrote it to anyone on Facebook they'd drop me like so many have. She said "You always think you're right." It was a warning. That in the military even when I think I'm right, I need to learn to take orders, follow orders, and not give people shit.

It's true. Often times I get into that "I'm right, you're wrong" attitude. I was glad she said that to me. I got through 6 years of military only on extreme occasions defying authority, but never enough to get in any trouble. I always followed orders without question. And the many times I was yelled at for this or that, I never argued, I never fought back. I took my licks. I know I can do it. I learned to check my ego (read: contentious inclinations and cynicism, I have no ego) in some instances and around some people. I haven't defeated that character flaw (probably never will considering how often I'm right anyway) but it isn't glaring. It isn't something people who only know me professionally or over Facebook would have any idea about.

I can say without a doubt when it comes to socializing, when it comes to friends and acquaintances, I know I know much less than anyone, and I've fully had my ear open to the subject for years now. I try to make sense of things, I apologize my way through it. But I just can't resolve why no one will cut me any fucking slack, or be more vocal. Maybe it's too obvious. But again one of those "Am I the crazy one?" moments is that I was raised with a concept of good manners. Good manners includes telling people when they are behaving poorly. It's not good to be rude, but it's also not good to go on letting the asshole stomp out the party.

But there's no one. And so I am this lonely asshole. All I want to do is cry. All I do is sleep and shove media down my receptors. Of course the classic rebuttal to this kind of despair is to take a harsh "swallow your medicine" attitude. I've noticed this strongly in the I-get-what-I-want-never-known-despair-department of society. I'm really not looking for pity, and I'm damn sure not looking for the neo-feminist "you don't know how good you have it, I have a cursed vagina" argument. Oh the plight of the hot popular successful chick, how her song is never fully sung. No one will know how truly lonely she is. Ha. Ok that's probably my #1 problem. It's not that people don't get when I'm joking, they probably just hate my jokes.