There’s been a lot of fear in my life for someone whose life has been relatively without danger.

Well, there was the bullying. I guess that’s where I learned fear, real fear. As you all know (quite well) by now, I was severely bullied in elementary school. I lived in fear of my classmates, every single one of them, because none of them were safe to be around from my point of view. Even the ones who seemed really nice, and there were some, were a source of danger because trying to interact with them always ended up in confusion and awkwardness.

And for some reason, I always blamed myself for that. I had this desperate desire to connect others because I was so lonely. Mp friends, no attention at home, teachers that barely tolerated me…. damned right I was lonely.

And somehow, this desperate desire to connect caused me to always blame myself and feel like there was something wrong with me when the lack of connection and awkwardness punished me once again for trying to relate.

It hurt so bad. I wanted to reach out to people and be included, but instead, this enormous gulf between me and them opened up and made me feel lonelier than ever. Made me feel like I was disgusting alien insect who should just scuttle back into the darkness where I belonged.

Perhaps it’s thing drive to connect that kept me from embracing the solitary life like so many before me. A lot of people in the position I was in simply say “Well then, people suck. Fuck people. ” and retreat into some intellectual pursuit like science or art or building things or programming. They make peace with their lone star status and, in effect, stop trying, and maybe even stop caring about it.

But I don’t feel like that was ever in the cards for me. I could stop trying, but I could not stop caring. Even as I type this, I desperately want people’s affection and approval. I want to feel the warmth of human connection, whether it’s through cuddling or applause. I want to make people happy, and see that happiness in their faces, and know I put it there.

And there is no chance of that ever going away, although if somehow my loneliness was pierced and destroyed, I can only assume it would grow a lot less acute.

Right now, I am a starving man. A thirsty dog. My life currently gives me barely enough to survive. That’s not the fault of anyone in my life, I assure you. It’s because the need is so massive that it would take more than what my life current offers to make a serious dent in it.

And I am so very numb all that time that what light and warmth is in my life is barely felt.

Loneliness eats away at you, I guess. Human beings have a lot of social needs, and I have spent my entire life, since my very first day of school, meeting almost none of them. No status, no friendship, no peer acceptance, no romance.

Just TV, video games, and books.

But maybe it was there all along and I just couldn’t feel it. I will freely admit that maybe I have a busted antenna when it comes to receiving positive social stimuli. Maybe all those years of childhood terror and loneliness caused some very vital part of my emotional/social equipment to atrophy and that’s why it seems to me now that it would take something pretty amazing to penetrate all that ice around my heart.

And yet, I feel like it’s definitely possible. I have a very strong feeling that the right person or circumstance (or both) could crack the ice and let the sun shine in to my cold and lonely heart.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what that magic key to my ice palace might be. The right sort of peer group, perhaps, or community. Or the right man who can put up with my eccentricities long enough for me to grow to trust them and open up to them. Let them see the pain beneath the smile, and see if they stick around.

If you can survive exposure to my radioactive core, then maybe I can trust that you won’t run away when things stop being light and fun and silly and cuddly. I have a terrible fear that nobody could love me if they really got to know me, if they got too close to me.

I understand a lot of people feel the same. We’re such a fucked up society.

The right person could prove me wrong. That would mean a lot to me. So would an environment where I feel like I can help out and be part of everything, instead of feeling like a clumsy and unwanted burden.

I have a lot of magic in me. I can do amazing things. Things that are unaffected by my weird eyesight and general clumsiness. I could be a real asset… somewhere.

The trick is that they have to be willing to see past my twenty year gap in job history and recognize that I have a lot of talent just waiting to find a use and make them proud (and money).

Volunteering has been mentioned as a cure for my condition. And I am sure it is. I can imagine that if I volunteered somewhere, it would go a long way towards my feeling less useless and more like there is some kind of point to my life besides consuming food and media till the day I die.

But I would have to get over a mountain of social anxiety in order to get there. A very deep part of me would be terrified that whatever the organization was, I would just end up getting rejected and excluded and that would lead to me feeling incompetent and unwelcome all over again.

Only worse, because now I have more proof.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.