Accepting the Unwanted

Writing this, even thinking this, is not easy. I promised myself to be honest not only with my friends, but with myself, but this has been difficult… to get started. I have discussed this with a few, and once I get started it’s like a rocket in space. It keeps going under its own inertia. My thoughts aren’t cohesive though, and as is my way, I usually find myself expanding my awareness as I talk.

Happenings over the last few months, either side of the 2022/23 holiday season, have felt like a hyper focus on a lifelong pattern I have noticed several times in my life. Regardless of my social anxieties and apparent neurodiversity, I am fairly good at forming friendships and keeping them long term. I have wonderful collection of create people that I consider worthwhile and prepared to invest time in, and I believe have a similar affection for me.

I have never been great at building stronger connections or affections that last as long as the shortest friendships I’ve had. This is the pattern I am looking at, and it goes back to my early years. I’ve always been a person on the side-line, watching everyone else, and I have no regrets for that. I actually enjoy watching people interact and socialise. The enjoyment of a crowd is a positive experience for me, and I have never felt jealousy for other people when they demonstrate close affection with each other.

I may desire to experience some of that connection myself and am glad that I can witness others doing so, but I do not begrudge them for their happiness. Heck, I’ll champion it. We need more of it.

It would seem that for whatever reason, that closeness, that connection, is something I cannot reach. The reasons why opportunities for connection have not come to fruition are many and diverse, including circumstantial, incompatibility, mistakes, and the as yet unknown. There is no pattern there. The pattern is simply it never lasts for long.

It does make a sceptic wonder if there isn’t something beyond reasoning at play here. Honestly? I don’t know. I consider myself a sceptic and yet I have had personal experiences that have challenged my scepticism. I can’t rule it out, but it doesn’t really provide any comfort. If anything, it makes things worse.

So I have had 45 years of life examples suggesting that there is a plan for me, as much as I dislike the thought, culminating in a flurry of the same thing happening within weeks of each other. Almost like a crescendo in the story plot leading to a light-bulb moment where the protagonist can’t ignore it anymore and gives in saying “Fine. I get it.” From there, the story takes a new path. They give in to the evidence and stop trying to fight their fate.

Which is how I feel about now. I am tired of fighting what seems to be an overwhelming pattern. I don’t like what it means but trying to change the narrative takes energy and I have little left. Now I have been here before and I have made a similar determination but without conviction for I have held on to hope. A glimmer of a spark that things were about to change. So I am giving on that hope.

It’s been over a week now and I am slowly accepting this message from the universe, but I have a word of advice for those people out there that want to give their friends that have given something up like I have done, DO NOT tell them the old line about ‘when you give up, that’s when things happen.’

Firstly, this isn’t true. There are plenty of people out there that serve as great examples of its falseness.

Second, even if the saying was true, then the point is to lose hope to find hope, and by telling them this, you are not letting them give up hope. You are actually defeating the purpose of giving up hope.

Anyway, the point is I want to feel connection, affection, and passion. Life experience suggests that this isn’t in the text of fate for me. So I am resigning myself to the message, even though it saddens me and conflicts with my internal craving. I wonder if I’m doing the right thing all the same.