matter

Your mind is only you for a defined period of time.

Then, you become someone else.

A year ago, I was someone who enjoyed social interaction. Christmas dinner, then New Year’s Eve party, followed by silence for the next three months. Followed by taking an exam. Followed by some dates. Followed by a trip. And now we are cleaning up my apartment before I dip. Such as been my life. The thing with social events is that even though they exist for me, I’m not entirely fulfilled by them in to the extent I may have imagined myself previously. I used to think fulfillment comes through friendship, which comes through social events. More realistically, it comes through selective social interaction during selective periods in life. Both mood and environment are variables at play, and the absence of one.

When I don’t have the desire to write, I think that I will never have the desire to write again. But then when I do have the desire to write, it seems that I will always have the desire to write. I always think the present is thae future even when my better logic suggests otherwise.

It’s a strange thing — the desire to write. Out of all the thing I could be doing or not doing in my life, I’m choosing to spend time in front of a screen and putting my thoughts down. My friend bought up today that she stored her content in both digital and analog forms, and I found that unrelatable. All my content is stored digitally. My blog, especially, is just a museum of myself that I personally curated. I have control over all the presentation and exhibition. It mirrors exactly what I want to do with my money, once I make money — just curate art.

As I get older, I find it harder and harder to feel connected.

Now that I am thoroughly into my young professional life, I realize that there are some simple things I look for in friendship that are actually a lot less common than I previously thought. Things like, replying to my texts in a timely manner, or going to my party, or actively listening to me when I want to talk about something… it’s all a lot more rare than I realized. I’m not sure if it was always this way or if this is a recent thing. It certainly feels like this is a phenomenon of post-college life, but maybe people were also equally self-interested in college. I certainly notice it a lot more than I did in the past. I find it to be disillusioning. As much as I want to be more connected to the people around me, it certainly feels very hard.

I think especially being a young professional in a big city, I realized that many people in my life only choose to associate with me when it is mutually beneficial to do so. I’m no different, although I would like to think I try to push myself to be accommodating for others. There’s a certain degree of fakeness I have developed out of necessity. If people around me are fake, and fakeness is the standard, I don’t want to stand out by being real. Even though I still keep my realness with me, I call upon it less and less over the years. My life is easier when I am like this. I am not happier now, but I also wasn’t happy before, so it doesn’t make much of a difference in my mental health. I am, however, able to accomplish more this way.

It isn’t until something happens to you until you realize who are actually your friends. And the answer is that very few people are your friends. I realize that there is very little interaction for the sake of interaction. People often want something from me for themselves. It usually isn’t material. But they wanted me to listen to something they wanted to say, or they wanted me to go somewhere with them that they didn’t want to go to alone, or they wanted to spend time with me because it made them feel more interesting. My time is precious, their time is precious, but sometimes I would like something unconditional, when someone wants to spend time with me irregardless of what I can offer them.

I think that is part of the reason I have been growing closer with my parents over the past couple of years. They want something from me, and part of it I’m sure is a desire to reflect positively on their own parenting, but they still love me in absence of how interesting or rare I work to be. My friends, on the other hand, like me for my interestingness. They like me for the rare personality I have, and I appreciate their validation for the rarity I strive to have. However, it’s not lost to me that their affection is not something I have in perpetuity. I can only command the affection of others as long as I continue to be interesting and rare.

I make my friends a priority in my life. I would also like to be a priority. I think that is partially why I like relationships so much. You are the priority of someone you like, and they are your priority as well. There’s no questioning of where you stand relative to each other. I think after matching with all these people on the apps and going on all these dates this summer, it makes me realize that you really aren’t someone’s priority unless they make you a priority. The default status is expendable, most often in a manner that is cold and indifferent and non-confrontational. It is frightening how quickly you stop mattering to someone when they deem you not interesting enough to continue to put energy into.

I’ve stopped taking it personally at this point. This is the way things are. I think after being in a relationship for the past 3 years, I forgot what it is like to meet people in a romantic context. I am so used to being a priority and mattering to someone that I forgot what it is like to be one of hundreds of prospective matches, and how quickly people move from not caring to caring to not caring again. How casually people can enter and exit your life without much of a thought of what kind of impact they had on you. It’s so normal to so many people, and it’s hard for me to find people who relate to my discomfort of how this is what the status quo is.

I like traveling for a variety of reasons, but one reason is that it allows me to get away from all of this. Everything I described… it’s things that I don’t need to worry about when I am abroad. I could meet people. Mostly likely I won’t, but that’s fine because I wasn’t really planning on meeting people anyways. I could derive insight and create art in absence of others. I don’t need to worry about who would show up at my party. There is no pressure to keep up with any social obligations because there are no expectations. How freeing is that. All of these problems living in a city as a young professional… I wish I could get away from it all.