This post is a follow-up to Ethics, morality and good or: the story of my life

Introduction

I’ve been feeling down lately, so I think it’s a good time to write a follow up to one of my previous “personal” post: Ethics, morality and good or: the story of my life

Even though this post is mainly based around my own experience, and might looks like it’s just me crying about my own situation, I am making a point at the end that isn’t just about my own experience. I still feel like what I wrote is too self-centered but I wanted to give as many details to show that even trying, sadly, doesn’t always work.

Context

I’m a guy in his mid-20s, I’ve always been not-so-great at socializing, mainly because I’m shy.

The Past

In high school I was friends with most of my classmates, but none of those friendships were what I consider “deep”, we were just friends because of the circumstances. I was close to one guy and one girl but it wasn’t really deep either.

After high school, I went to college in a big city, roughly 100 km away from before, I purposely went that far because I wanted a fresh start: new city, new people, new friends… maybe a girlfriend. I was studying English, but I was mainly here to “have a break”, after almost dropping out of high school in my last year because I was sick of it.

Things went wrong, like I said in my previous post, almost as soon as I joined this city loneliness and the start of a depression (related to loneliness and mainly the state of the world, as discussed in the previous blog post) hit me hard not even 3 weeks in, since I wasn’t with my family anymore there was nothing to keep my mind away from the bad, I was just with me (It’s also during this time that I got interested even more than before in privacy and Linux… but that’s a story for another day).

After I noticed this “problem” I decided to do everything to meet people, and quickly.

In less than a month, I had friends, met multiple girls who became friends, tried dating applications (those were AWFUL). I had a great time for the next 3 months, we did multiple parties, and all in all, it was one of the best times of my life (at least when I wasn’t alone).

Back in January, the classes we had to take changed, I was kinda happy since it meant that I could meat new people. In one of those new classes I ended up meeting a nice girl with who I remained friend for years after that, in a sense, she became my best friend. I also still remained (partially) in contact with the previous group though.

IT in college

Things continued until the end of the year, where I moved to another campus to study IT (in the same city, around 10 km away from the previous campus, or an hour in public transport).

In IT, I quickly made a new group of friend though sadly, contact with those people only happened in the campus itself (I can only remember a single time when one of them invited me to go out together with some of their other friend), contact with the previous group almost stopped (except for 2 guys).

In IT, my mood became worse. A lot worse. I had less money, so I often had days that I spent hungry, I was far from everything, which really didn’t help.

I almost never went out because none of my friend wanted to go out, the only (rare) times I did go out was with the girl I mentioned previously, and 2 guys from the previous year, with those 2 guys we did some parties because we wanted to meet people and it was a complete failure every time (because all three of us were shy).

The only person with who I consistently remained in contact with was the girl, we consistently spent an afternoon a month together in the city (she had a boyfriend, so there was never more than that).

Time passed, and the second year, I barely went to class because my mood was so low, I stopped going out with the 2 guys (the failures really got to us), and my only social interaction, was, at one point, with the girl.

The end of college

My time studying IT lasted 2 years, up to the point I had to drop out because I ran out of money: 20€ in my bank account and 20€ in cash - with a 300€ rent bill due 10 days later and 6500€ in debts (it’s a long story).

At the end of the year, I told this girl that I’d have to leave because I ran out of money. We met one last time, it was a sad afternoon for me but we remained upbeat and hopeful that it was temporary.

Back to square one

I went back to my original city… where I didn’t know anyone but my family.

The Present

So it’s been some years now that I’ve been back, and it’s been some years since I talked to a friend.

When I got back I almost couldn’t accept it, I purposely didn’t try to meet new people. It’s been years now, and the only people I talk to are my family and my work colleagues.

Today, the only people I can consider friend are some of those colleagues, 3 to be precise, but we aren’t in the same office… we aren’t even in the same city.

I haven’t remained in contact with anyone from college, at most there’s the 1 or 2 SMS a year to the girl… which is always awkward because I just don’t know what to say, I’m the one left, I should try to stay in contact with her more… but I just can’t do it.

The Point

As I said in my previous post, I’m happy… sometimes.

However, something is missing, more specifically, someone is missing.

Loneliness is the thing that ruins my happiness. It’s the thing that ruins everything.

Sharing is caring but it’s better when you share with someone you like… or more.

So what’s my point?

Well, you know what the worst thing is: I’m not the only one, far from it, this world is filled with 8 billions Humans yet thousands, if not millions of them are lonely, lonely while being surrounded by others, the worst kind of loneliness. Dating applications ruined dating, which in turn, ruined relationships, be it love or friendship.

This post is an invitation to you, people: talk to people. If you are interested in someone: ask them out.

Remember that the person you will talk to might not have had the courage to start the conversation, so loosing a potential relationship because of this isn’t worth it.

Spending years in loneliness isn’t fun, it’s the thing that can ruin your life, so remember this:

No matter what you do, it will never be worse than loneliness.