Do you feel isolated?

I feel very isolated. I've lived in the same town since the first grade in 1996, grew up with same people that are around, etc. But I never felt like I fit in at school, and I always felt I didn't fit in, because we moved when I was 7 and my parents weren't from here, so we didn't know any families where I could have made friends at an early age.

Also my parents are alcoholics and I finally figured that out around 10-11 years old and I was embarrassed. There were two brothers that lived one street over from me, and somehow they found out my parents drank a lot. So at school one day at lunch they said loudly in front of everyone to me that my parents were drunks.

So I always tried to hide away from everyone because I didn't want them to know where I lived or what my parents were like. I only ever had someone over once and it was because they just happened to come by on their bike unexpectedly.

Heck, even now I still won't let anyone come over. I finally last month told my best friend that I met in college 10 years ago that my parents are both alcoholics. They said they figured it out already though, even thought they never met them.

But what really upsets me is I go to the gym and places, and I see people that I grew up with and knew from school, college, etc talking to each other and I'm always the weirdo that people either don't remember or they don't care to acknowledge. I don't know which.

On top of that, my best friend is involved in these civic clubs and things and he keeps meeting people that I knew from school years ago, even though he has no idea that I know any of them. Plus he didn't even know them because he didn't go to the same school.

So it's just really weird to me, that I can go out and nobody says hi or knows who I am, and it's sad, because a lot of times I see people around that I used to know 10 or 20 years ago, and they seem so confident and successful and involved in the community, or politicians, etc and I feel like nothing, like a loser and that they wouldn't even remember me. Even though I've tried, so hard to finish school, and college and get a decent job to make a living and better myself. But it feels like I'm nothing like anyone else is. It's an embarrassment. :/

Now that my brother is over at his girlfriend's place(a ferry ride away) all the time, very.

^^ This though. I get that all the time too - it's pretty depressing tbf.

I felt this. I always get super sad about it not gonna lie because everyone is living their life and having families/getting married. I mean I know it’s my fault since I Isolate myself a lot and don’t really talk much. I wish I wasn’t like this because maybe then I would actually have a life.

Because of stuttering I've felt isolated most of my life. I'd rather just not talk than stutter in front of people I'm not close to and most of the world is people I'm not close to so I say very little.

Kind of...

Yes but it's okay as long as I have a source of entertainment. I'm not that social beyond the basic biological need for it.

yes

Not nearly as much as I'd like. Is that weird?

Not to me, that sounds pretty reasonable actually But, I do find solace in isolation.

I know the feeling..kids can be so cruel and even adults. I was bullied and it really gave me low self esteem and fear of people. I isolated myself and missed out on a lot. It is very good you are going to the gym and places to keep busy. I always feel I don't fit in with people. But i'm too shy and people can be so loud and make me uncomfortable so I prefer to be alone..but it can suck so bad to be isolated.

Should I feel isolated? I don't know. Do I feel isolated? No.

My only "gift" in life was/is the ability to use substitutes for things and be 100% satisfied with the results. So, for example, when I was in my late teens, cable TV was my substitute social life. And I was aware of it. And I was completely fine with that. When the internet came along and TV started to fade as the dominant form of social consciousness, I transitioned to that and was still fine with it.

So, as long as I am connected to the borg collective, I'm OK. Although I must admit that "social media" (Facebook/Twitty/Discordant/soforth) is not my cup of tea. So I don't know what I'll do when forums go away. I guess I'll have to finally break down and buy a Netflix account or something.

I’m isolators because of my character but also by choice, often times I just find it an easier way to cope than trying and failing to fit in

Well, not only did I usually fail to fit in if I tried. I also found it pretty unsatisfying if I somehow managed to shoehorn myself into some kind of a social group. Because it was always just an act anyway and it becomes pretty exhausting after awhile to always have to be someone you aren't. And eventually people figure it out anyway. Sooner or later I would always do something that made it obvious and could totally see/perceive the shift in the way people interacted with me once they realized I totally didn't belong. It's actually kind of comical in some cases because they knew and I knew they knew and they knew that I knew they knew but I kept the act up anyway just to see how long it would take them to finally break the stalemate and drop the act.

I find it pretty easy to fit in, but also unsatisfactory accompanied by a sense of guilt alongside a feeling of wasted investment. Plus, there is a certain level of abandoning yourself when around others, you have to give up yourself to fit in with others, at least I do. I can play the part, but it feels as though I have conformed myself in ways that are really uncomfortable. It is as though, one clips their own wings, in order to stay grounded among everyone else. Even on forums, I feel like this at times and have to take a break from them.

From my perspective, it looks like slavery, to be part of a group. I do realize my perspective is, well, not the basis of reality. I've tried to understand the perspective of others who do willingly forgo their own sense of individuality to be part of a group, and I can never make sense of it. But, perhaps their sense of individuality comes from a group, it really is beyond my comprehension.

This is why identity politics weird me out.

Yes, because I've never known anyone like myself and always been a weird, incomprehensible alien to everyone else. I don't find solitude pleasant; I find it crushing and depressing. I was happiest when I had friends and living with other people and always had someone to talk to. I hate being alone. That's why I keep coming back here. Because if I don't have any contact at all, I go completely ****ing crazy.

I'm definitely quite isolated at the moment. I'm very lucky I've got my wife - she knows me very well and accepts me pretty much how I am. (there have been a few things she didn't like but they were understandable) My son accepts and loves me too, thank God.

I do it to myself. I can usually get on with people very well - and I can talk to pretty much anyone - as long as I'm feeling alright. I've been part of a group of friends before - but I cut a few of them off. I do that quite a bit. Something annoys me or I get offended, or I just get sick of them. It's not good.

I've only been living on my own for a few years - but some aspects of it I like, I like having the time to unwind without having to do anything. But I also hate it as well - it's a horrible way to live and I'm very glad I haven't had to do it all my life. I would have gone nuts.

Oh, I am definitely isolated. There isn't much to do to mitigate feelings of loneliness for me, except maybe throwing my self-respect out the window, which I am tired of doing.

I don't think abandoning yourself is a bad thing in itself, but the problem arises when that abandoning is meaningless. Change can be for good or for bad, and I think relationships should produce changes in their members, but of course good changes. They should help you grow as yourself, not cripple you. I too am afraid of "sacrificing" myself in relationships with others, but I think that a big factor in this fear is the fact that, as I think, society encourages crippling relationships (modern society maybe more than past society, but I would be talking from ignorance and limited perspective). What I want before "sacrificing" myself is the guarantee that I will be "reborn" as myself afterwards. Is it a contradiction changing while remaining as yourself? Well, what matters is whether you truly want to become what you are trying to become, instead of trying to become like that because a necessity hidden behind a fake happiness.

Wherever I look I see people "killing" each other and calling it "love" and "friendship". Maybe that's a biased view, of course, and I am just trying to make the world adapt to me instead of I to the world. But I cannot avoid seeing it. Whenever I try to relate with another, I feel like this impersonal thing called society interferes, and so we cannot relate with each other directly person to person, as relationships should be. No, society is already inside myself, society is already inside the another, and if I we want to relate we have to do it by its rules. That's what I feel. Do people usually think about how much society is inside us? Do they care? I care deeply. I see society as an impersonal monster with an impersonal concept of how a human being should be, of how they should live. People care about individual persons, society doesn't.