I don't know if I'm experiencing an existential crisis, or if I'm just depressed and detached at the moment. Here goes.
Whenever I actually think about how I operate and/or interact with the people in general I feel that I'm always on the 'outside looking in' (please pardon the pun). I'm generally aloof, disconnected. I virtually never feel like I'm part of what's going on: events, gatherings, public venues, most conversations. I'm always observing, analyzing, scrutinizing; never experiencing. I can never let myself just be in the moment.
A good portion of the time, I don't feel like I'm even a full member of the human race. People in general mystify me. I don't understand them. No comprendo. Wakarimasen. I always feel like an outsider. That's not just the lonliness talking. I don't feel like I fit in anywhere. There's a few exceptions, of course. Storey, Maxwell_Demon, my buddy Dan and my sister Claire. That's just about it. Worldwide. Everywhere else I just feel like a socially inept chump. A stunted, defensive, slightly paranoid individual.
I see people interacting or conversing and what I'm seeing are all the little ceremonies and rituals that are exchanged (handshaking, verbal mannerisms, greetings, goodbyes, body language) not for what they are, but like some anthropology study. Vestigial tribal rituals: religious, cultural or social, not the sentiment they mean to the users.
I periodically succumb to a hellish state of lonliness but every time I seriously mean to approach a woman in conversation or even a hello I seize up. Midgrade anxiety attack or something like it. I don't know what it is but girls terrify me in a social arena. Fear of rejection, fear of contempt, fear of making a cosmic ass of myself, fear of unknown quantities. I can't get a read on people in general and females in particular. Signals, body language and verbal nuance just fly over my head. Don't even recognize most of them and nobody to blame but myself.
Okay, enough introspection/self-pity/agonizing. Just trying to order some of my thoughts.
Whenever I actually think about how I operate and/or interact with the people in general I feel that I'm always on the 'outside looking in' (please pardon the pun). I'm generally aloof, disconnected. I virtually never feel like I'm part of what's going on: events, gatherings, public venues, most conversations. I'm always observing, analyzing, scrutinizing; never experiencing. I can never let myself just be in the moment.
A good portion of the time, I don't feel like I'm even a full member of the human race. People in general mystify me. I don't understand them. No comprendo. Wakarimasen. I always feel like an outsider. That's not just the lonliness talking. I don't feel like I fit in anywhere. There's a few exceptions, of course. Storey, Maxwell_Demon, my buddy Dan and my sister Claire. That's just about it. Worldwide. Everywhere else I just feel like a socially inept chump. A stunted, defensive, slightly paranoid individual.
I see people interacting or conversing and what I'm seeing are all the little ceremonies and rituals that are exchanged (handshaking, verbal mannerisms, greetings, goodbyes, body language) not for what they are, but like some anthropology study. Vestigial tribal rituals: religious, cultural or social, not the sentiment they mean to the users.
I periodically succumb to a hellish state of lonliness but every time I seriously mean to approach a woman in conversation or even a hello I seize up. Midgrade anxiety attack or something like it. I don't know what it is but girls terrify me in a social arena. Fear of rejection, fear of contempt, fear of making a cosmic ass of myself, fear of unknown quantities. I can't get a read on people in general and females in particular. Signals, body language and verbal nuance just fly over my head. Don't even recognize most of them and nobody to blame but myself.
Okay, enough introspection/self-pity/agonizing. Just trying to order some of my thoughts.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
[Edited on Nov 09, 2004 5:33PM]
mexico is for tourist purposes of course! i'm going to playa del carmen. while it's snow-storming here, i'll be on a beach!