Where Alone Comes From

I'm not a huge fan of holidays. They're incredibly unstructured... and the lack of structure makes it hard for me to concentrate and even harder to get anything done. Today was no exception. I'm not a huge fan of the crowds on Black Friday, so I didn't go shopping. Doing homework was an exercise in futility. Working out still hasn't happened. The only thing I had set in my schedule was doing something with a friend, but even that didn't have a set time. I called him twice, but haven't been able to get in touch with him all day.

Part of me is concerned, and blames some kind of outside influence. He's usually a pretty reliable guy, and I've honestly tried to make this friendship, which is still in the very early stages, work. I'm trying to develop better friendships with lots of people, so I try gauge the responses of the people in my life, figure out where I stand, and then, in turn, do what they expect me to do. I haven't seen any red flags that tell me this one is going to explode. But, then again, I've never seen red flags before relationships explode. They just explode.

Which comes to the other part of me - the part that wonders if I'm really worth befriending in the first place. The part that feels it's not worth even trying because it fails so often and leaves me feeling awful. And the part that tries to convince me that I did something to burn yet another friendship before it started.

At least from here on out, I'm planning to try something like this with people: "Hey, because I have autism, I have a really hard time reading people. As we become friends, could you help me figure out what your expectations are for our friendship, and then help me identify times when I do something outside of those expectations?"

Either way, nothing happened, and right now I feel alone.

Miserably, awfully alone.

Not as bad as sometimes. I'm not going to pray to die or anything. But as soon as I finish writing this I'll probably go to the gym to get high on endorphins. Either that or go to sleep. Which means that I'm not really in a good place right now.

The frustrating part is that I don't know where the devastating alone-ness even comes from. I had a great conversation with a new friend this afternoon, and yesterday spent ten hours going from one loving, inclusive Thanksgiving to another. Tomorrow morning I'll be at the temple, making a difference in people's lives and honestly appreciated for the service I give. I live with my siblings and know that they love me and would drop anything for me. So would a dozen other people I could call at a moment's notice. God loves me unconditionally. But even knowing that doesn't shake the feeling.

So why do I feel this way?

Am I just too invested in the development of new relationships? Do I take it too personally? Am I delusional? Totally insensible to the feelings that others have for me? Or is there something fundamentally wrong with me?

Just now I looked up studies that determined the impact of the things I face on developing friendships to maybe get some context. Having same-sex attraction dramatically increases my need for emotional intimacy, but also makes it hard to develop meaningful friendships with men. Autism makes all relationships difficult because of the lack of emotional reciprocity, difficulty understanding roles, and difficulty interpreting social and nonverbal cues. And bipolar wreaks havoc with relationships by stressing them from both sides.

Maybe I'm on to something. I was trying to figure out if the feeling I'm experiencing is at all rational, by trying to create a hypothetical situation that would dispel it. At least in my mind, it's at least partly rational if there are situations that could, if played out in my mind, influence its development. If there are no situations that could have an impact, then it's probably just depression speaking, and won't listen to reason anyway. At least in my mind, friends calling me on the phone wouldn't fix how I feel. Neither would sitting with them and talking. Those would all potentially work as distractions - moving my focus long enough that the brunt of the feeling could fade - but none of them would really take it away.

But something would.

I think the alone-ness and isolation I'm feeling comes from an intense desire to be understood... and to understand someone else, completely. Not just to have a hundred people who would do anything for me and who will talk to me for as long as I need them to, or a thousand acquaintances who will know my name in the hall... but to understand someone else completely and fully, to be able to love and trust them completely, and to know that they understand, love, and trust me the same way.

That's what I want.

I think I should just go to the gym and forget about it for now. Because, regardless of how much I think or write about it, that type of relationship is probably not going to happen for a long, long time... and thinking about it will only sharpen the pain. Maybe one of the relationships I'm working on right now, or sometime in the near future, could develop into something like that. But that takes commitment and dedication, time and investment... and that's in people without other problems. Having a friend that close is a rare gift among normal people. For me, a guy who has autism, bipolar, and SSA... well, part of me believes it never will. That I'll spend the rest of my life totally and completely alone. That's the fear I had to come to grips with years ago, and it's still there in my mind as a real possibility. And the other part of me realizes that, if it ever happens, it'll take an angel, a whole host of miracles, and a lot of work on both sides. Either way, it won't be resolved tonight. Thinking about it thus far has been useful... because I feel like I know what I'm facing... but now I just need to get over it and move on.



Edit: Resolution

He had left his phone at Thanksgiving dinner. I got a text a few minutes after publishing this post, and took the opportunity to ask him to give me feedback in the future if I ever overstep my bounds. The timing makes the whole thing seem terribly ironic. Sometimes I feel like God gives me experiences with the sole purpose of writing about them. Laugh out loud.