PERSONAL

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Summer's End

8 years ago2,620 words

I'll be returning to university tomorrow, and there's a lot on my mind. Specifically about personal growth; to what degree it's possible for me, whether it's more visible to others than oneself. I'm going to ramble in a stream-of-consciousness manner in this post, partly so then I can sort through my thoughts, and partly because I'll personally find it interesting to compare the weather of my mind at this point in my life with how it might be in a few months' time.

While the Summer break was supposed to be a time of relaxation and enjoyment, a time to live life, go on holidays, spend time with friends and things like that, for me it's just been brain surgery and the same old isolation as always. I had more social contact than I had in years just because I was able to regularly text my friend and see her three times, but most of my time was still spent alone, longing for something else and considering death when I regularly concluded that, with my mind, I'd never be able to achieve or acquire that something, whatever it even is.

I may not be autistic, but I don't feel that I'm 'neurotypical'. I've never wanted to 'fit in'; I've always travelled against the flow of the crowd. History's full of outsiders who manage to make a difference, but their lives are usually full of people who accept them despite their eccentricities, and/or they're tormented by feelings of alienation. I suppose the ones who we remember are those who managed to focus on their work regardless... and, I bet, the ones who just happened to already have connections anyway. Newton was quirky and died a virgin, but his intellect made a significant impact on the world... because he was in a position in which other learned people could be exposed to his ideas and allow them to spread. Makes me wonder how many genius revelations have occurred many times throughout human history, just usually in disconnected people who took their ideas to the grave not because they didn't want to share them, but because they didn't know how, or had nobody with the right connections to share them with.

I think it's natural for those of us who've never fit in to look at those great outcasts and see ourselves as on a similar path through life, playing a similar role. "I may be lonely and weird, but at least maybe - despite my suffering - I'll be remembered and make a difference because I think differently!!" I suppose it's something to cling to. Naive, though. Deluded, even.

While I used to take an odd kind of pride in my 'otherness' - perhaps that's a part of the identity-defining phase of adolescence - I've also always longed to find kindred spirits. But the question is always 'where?'. When I meet someone I feel I might click with, things progress to relative intimacy quite quickly, if the chemistry's there; it's just so rare that this ever actually happens for me, largely because my kindred spirits are hiding away as I am.

I'll be living with seven strangers starting tomorrow. Six girls and one other guy. I don't know the first thing about any of them; all I know is the genders, as that's all the room-booking page mentioned. In the university I'm attending, it seems that most first-year students stay in what are called the 'halls of residence'. They're unlike the 'dorms' typical in American 'colleges' in that you don't have a roommate; instead you inhabit one of maybe six or eight separate little bedrooms with their own ensuite bathrooms (in this university, at least) and a shared kitchen. Within the first few weeks or months, though, most first-years make friends and decide to get private accommodation with them for the second year (irritatingly, despite starting in September, you have to make plans for next year's accommodation in December). Shockingly, I didn't have anyone to make plans to live with in this way. The only person I'd want to live with is instead living with her boyfriend this year. So I had to apply for the halls of residence again; one of the few not-first-years who did, I imagine. It seems that most of the people who do this are international students... which I've got nothing against as such, though last time I went to university (for just a year), I shared a hall with international students and found that language and cultural barriers made it extremely difficult to connect with any of them.

During my stay in halls last semester, I shared with four girls and another guy. The girls got along well with each other, forming a sort of clique quite quickly. I didn't fit in, and ended up being the weird one who hid in his room all year. As has been the story of my life, really. People say things like 'be confident and just talk to people, then you'll make friends!', but of course it's naive to think it's that simple. Even if you want to be friends with someone, it doesn't mean they have any reason to want to be friends with you. You might have zero chemistry, be from different worlds. Nothing in common. Nothing to connect over. Or you might simply make them uncomfortable because you don't know how to interact in a way that they're receptive to.

So considering my failure to connect with anyone that time, I don't exactly have high hopes about getting along with my housemates this year either. It's not that I'll clash with them or anything; it's more likely I'll just end up avoiding them because I'll assume they'll find me an awkward bother, so I'll only use the kitchen when nobody's in it, things like that. How I envy my friend for living with someone she loves! She used to wait until the kitchen was free in her halls before using it, but now she's moved beyond that phase in her life. In my story, it's as if I'm just repeating the same chapter again and again. Hiding and stagnating.

There's a concept in psychology or maybe sociology (which, like with many of these things, I can't remember the name of and as such can't link to!) which suggests that our social focus shifts throughout our lives. As infants, our focus is on our parents, then as children, it widens to include our siblings. As adolescents, we focus on friends, and in our twenties, we focus on our partner. Our thirties are a time to focus on our newly-built family, then on career colleagues, and finally, in middle-age or later years, our scope of attention widens to society as a whole, and we feel more interested in the way the world outside our personal bubble operates.

Psychology and sociology are full of these neat-sounding generalisations that appear - as a result of the belief in my alienation - to apply to 'everyone but me'. My mind disregards the myriad exceptions and assumes that everyone else is on the same common path, all meeting these milestones at roughly the same point and overcoming psychological snags as their peers do the same. I, my mind says, am lagging by comparison, and am so far behind at this point that any chance of success or relating with others is hopeless, so I may as well just quit.

It's absurd, of course. While many 'normal people' may indeed pass these milestones at the expected point in their lives, there are abundant exceptions. When I was 18 or so, my same-aged friend had a 30-year-old brother who still lived at home. My parents knew a couple in Australia whose son was still in university at that age, while their daughter had (supposedly) never had a relationship until her thirties. Several of my lecturers at university started their undergraduate degree at age 30 (interesting how that age keeps coming up) and went on to become professors. One told me she'd never been in a relationship until age 27.

Sometimes these things reassure me... but other times, they just make me think "the existence of other losers doesn't make me feel any better about being one". It doesn't help that the two friends I do have are apparently much more 'successful' in the ways my mind thinks matter (one has many friends, the other's in a healthy, long-lasting relationship with someone she clearly clicks with; so many of us would kill for such a thing), so there's a lot of upwards social comparison that leads to me feeling inferior.

And yet I wonder whether it could said that being forced into this place in life has allowed me to develop spiritual insights that others might never learn. I've learned to appreciate things because I know what it's like to not have them, and I've learned to control my own mind to some degree while others go their whole lives being controlled by theirs.

Though perhaps it's absurd to say I have control over my mind. I've certainly learned a lot about the theory behind mental control, but the fact is that I'm writing this because I'm avoiding looking at a basic Facebook page related to university, because I'm scared and can't bear to face it. That's not control.

Facebook... For all the emotional struggles and brain tumour and everything I've had to endure, that simple social media site looms like a terrifying demon in the back of my mind. There's the idea that I must get used to using it if I want to connect with others in university (because if I don't, I'll miss out on big chunks of their lives and won't be worth keeping up with), but the idea of having the happy lives of attractive others constantly shoved in my face just seems like torture considering the emptiness of my own. It's all about social comparison; Facebook's fun if you use it to augment an already fulfilling life, but depressing if everyone else seems better off than you. I know that what people post is selective and doesn't tell the whole story. I've talked and read a whole lot about this before. But it's not even the fact that everyone's having a wonderful time that'd get to me; it'd just be seeing that everyone has an interconnected web of connections while I don't. Everyone has this basic competency that I lack, and despite devoting huge chunks of my life to teaching myself skills I didn't have because I knew that learning was necessary to acquire them, my mind treats this as somehow different, as if it's something I've missed my chance to acquire so might as well just resign myself to that miserable fact. That's absurd too.

I could have used Facebook to find out about and contact my new housemates ahead of time, but I've missed that window of opportunity now due to this ridiculous fear. I know I've only myself to blame for being in this position, but I feel so reluctant to do what I must to escape it.

What is it I fear, exactly? The staying power of thoughts. Viewing Facebook would be like stepping through a furnace; while the intense pain might be over quickly, the burns would linger longer, resurfacing regularly when triggered or when my mind wandered while lonely. I'd remember what I'd seen, and dwell on it, whether I wanted to or not.

So what can I do? I feel that it'd intimidate and bother me less if I were more socially connected, if I were not single... but of course I need to use Facebook in order to become more socially connected, hence the vicious circle feeling of it all.


...I've taken a several hour break since typing that, and during that time I actually did check the Facebook page I'd been avoiding; a page for the halls of residence I'll be staying in. It wasn't as bad as I thought. I didn't experience any anxiety symptoms as I assumed I would. So that's interesting. Something I can try to remember when I'm struggling to face it or similar things in future.

However, a few people commented asking whether people were in rooms near their own, and just a glimpse at their display pictures made my mind say "this person is so different to you that they will reject you or there's no chance of you clicking with them". This knee-jerk assumption of irreconcilable difference or social rejection really gets in the way.

One person's display picture was of her dolled up like a model, pouting; I immediately assumed she'd be a sassy, 'popular' sort of girl who'd look down on an older weirdo like me because I'm not the sort of swaggering confident guy she'd rather interact with. Another display picture was one of those guys, muscular and standing in what looked like a nightclub in a macho pose; I imagined he'd get along well with that girl, but would see me as pathetic and a sort of social poison best avoided. Another person was clearly foreign; I didn't judge her as 'lesser' or anything like that, but did assume 'we couldn't connect'.

While I don't think highly of myself, it isn't that I think I'm worthless or undesirable and that nobody could possibly like me. It's just that I understand that people gravitate towards those whose attitudes resonate with their own; it's rare - amongst young people, at least - to see someone attractive and 'cool' willingly spending time with someone ugly and awkward. Or at least that's the mental model I've developed of the world. If there was someone awkward and introverted, I'd make efforts to get to know them because I'd sense a connection and chemistry; that's what happened with my two friends. If they were a bubbly extrovert, though, why try? The way I wish to live would clash so much with theirs that either they'd try to get me involved and I'd not like that, or they'd just lose interest when I had no interest in joining all the partying.

I feel that there are people who'd tell me that being so selective is limiting, but I just don't see how it could realistically be any other way. My only real hope seems to be that there'd be at least one awkward, nerdy person in my halls, who I'd make efforts to get to know if I felt we could connect. That is, if she showed interest in me.

Perhaps that's the biggest thing, actually. One of my two friends is quite unlike me, but she shows interest in me, so I reciprocate. But most people don't. If my housemates do, even if they seem on the surface very dissimilar to me, I'll reciprocate. I'll make efforts, as long as it doesn't require going clubbing with them or something. I just don't expect anyone to show interest.

Anyway. There are a bunch of other things on my mind, but for now I should stop rambling and prepare as well as I can for tomorrow. I'm relatively calm about it, at least, and intending to just go with the flow and see what happens... but I imagine I'll make an unimpressive first impression, as before, and that'll set up the avoidance for the rest of the year. I wish I could practise the situation in some virtual space many times to develop competency before the real thing, but sadly such a thing isn't possible.

Hopefully this second year of university will be one of personal growth though. Hopefully my posts here will reflect that. I'm tired of being so behind and writing such embarrassingly bizarre things.