Feeling Alone

For the better part of my life, I've struggled to find a place where I feel like I truly belong. I've struggled to let people in, in fear of being let down by someone yet again, only to actually end up being let down by someone yet again. What it really comes down to is that i've struggled to find friends. Best friends, or casual going out friends, or friends who share common interests with me, or friends who give a damn about me at all.

So I end up being by myself, more then I'd care to admit sometimes. And let me tell you...

It can get really lonely.

Do you know what it's like to want to go out on a Saturday night and not have anyone to go out with you? When you text everyone in your phone to be told they're "busy" or "not going out tonight" only to see pictures and snapchats of them the next day that prove they weren't busy or not going, they just didn't want to include you.

Do you know what it's like to be completely abandoned by your best friend? Having the one person who you thought you could count on, who you really thought was a good friend, a real friend to you, completely disappear from your life, finding what they seemingly call better friends than you and leaving you to question the very foundation in which your friendship was built in the first place. And now imagine this happening not once, but twice.

Do you know what it's like to want to go for a coffee or a drink after work or school, wanting to go to brunch on a Sunday, wanting to watch a game or see a movie, and then realizing that you don't have anyone to do these things with you?

Do you know what it's like to not be a part of the group chats or Facebook invites of the people around you? To see everyone sharing inside jokes with one another, and making plans, and always having a group of people to hit 'send' to and have a conversation with even if they begin to feel the slightest bit lonely. And then realizing you struggle to find even a single person to talk to sometimes.

Do you know what it's like to have to bother your sibling, or your boyfriend, or even your parents to let you tag along with them? Because they're the only people in your life that are slightly obligated to hang out with you and so won't say no when you request to do so. And only do so to make you feel slightly less lonely then you are.

And now I know a lot of you may think "well it's your own fault", or "you should put yourself out there more".

Well maybe it is my fault. Maybe I'm just a hard person to get along with, or maybe I seem a little bit weird to people sometimes. Maybe I'm just not worth the struggle it takes to get passed my barriers and get to know me. Maybe I'm too quiet or too loud, or too out there or too reserved, or too nice or too bitchy, or too positive or too negative. Maybe I'm not the exact type of person you're used to having in your life. Maybe I'm the problem.

And maybe I should put myself out there more. But it's really hard to open up to people, to trust people as friends, and get hurt time and time again. It's really hard to make so many efforts to get to know people and be shut down time and time again.

Do I know a lot of people? Yes. Can I call a lot of people my friends? No.

And I don't want pity. I don't want people to think I don't have any friends at all, because I have two or three pretty awesome ones I definitely can't group in with the rest. But as of late, I can probably list all of my friends, both best and casual, on one hand. And that's a pretty sad feeling.

So to my friends who have stuck by me. That like spending their time with me when they can. That don't act like I'm a bother when I'm around. To my sister, and my boyfriend, and my parents, I am eternally grateful to you.

But too the people that have made me feel so alone, and so left out and excluded. Put yourself in my shoes, and picture what you would feel like if you were lonely. I promise, you won't like the feeling at all.