Today at lunch I did what I do when I am eating lunch at work, not because I want to but because I have no option for what I’d really like.
I left my desk, went down the elevator, walked into the cafe area, assembled my salad, got a glass of ice water, paid, and then sat down by myself to eat. Then, I ate. I checked my fantasy baseball team. I wrote in my journal. I read a few pages of my book.
I watched people … people who have people. All around me were people eating lunch with colleagues, maybe even friends. The cafe area on any workday lunch hour buzzes with the murmur of countless conversations.
I contribute to none of them.
This, as I said, is not my choice. It is, however, a sign of exactly how lonely I feel.
There was a moment today — a day that is already rather challenging because of a painful anniversary — in which I was sitting there and wondered if I was actually invisible. Sometimes, it feels that way. I hate that it does. But it does.
I have shared my frustrations with finding in-person friends with a very few people. That, also, isn’t by choice. I have only a very few people with which to share anything. Of course, if I had anyone who gave a shit outside the walls of my home, I wouldn’t feel quite so invisible. I am neither looking for nor do I want a crowd. I’d take a person, maybe a few persons. But who am I to be greedy when for the past six years I haven’t been able to find one?
Here’s what happens when I share my frustrations: I get recommendations. I am told I need to put myself out there, that I need to keep trying, that I need to ask people to do things in groups so they aren’t intimidated by one-on-ones or that I need to ask people to do things one-on-one so they aren’t intimidated by groups. I am told that I need to vary the activities that I suggest, as if poker, DnD, sports watching, book clubs, movie clubs, podcast clubs, and a simple coffee or beer are all so motherfucking similar. I am told I need to address the “elephant in the room” and examine whether I am coming on too strong or the other “elephant in the room” and examine whether I am not being clean in what I’m asking for. There seem to be a lot more elephants in these rooms than I ever thought possible.
And here’s the thing: I have gotten to the point in which I want to punch these well-intention problem-solvers in the throat.
Perhaps I haven’t been clear when I repeatedly have said, “Yup, done that” and “Yup, tried that.” I have asked people to do things one-on-one. I have asked groups of people to gather for a huge fucking range of activities. I have examined everything from my hygiene to my level of 50-year-old hideousness that I see in the mirror to the state of my breath. I have been more laid back about these invitations. I have been less laid back about these invitations. And goddamn it, I have put myself out there over and over and over and over again for years now, so please don’t fucking tell me that “these things take time.”
Here’s what I haven’t done: I haven’t turned down an invitation that’s come my way. That would be extremely challenging because ya know what? I could have been involved in a really nasty farming accident and still count the number of invitations I’ve turned down. Zero. None. Not one has come. Zero.
“But John,” I am told. “People are busy.”
I know a thing or two about being busy. I have a full-time day job and run a side business that adds numerous hours to my working life. I have an adult son who requires very little of me but with whom I still like to spend time and a younger son for whom I coach baseball and recently finished coaching two baseball teams. I have a wife with whom I find time for a weekly date, house repairs that I somehow am able to do, a few hobbies that I keep up on. I go on vacations and take time to meditate pretty regularly. So don’t fucking tell me that people are busy. We make time for what matters, and when I see the state of where things are with my social life, please tell me how I am supposed to draw any other conclusion besides, “John, you don’t matter”?
Of course, there’s another conclusion that’s possible: The people I have invited to do all these things with, the people in whom I have invested my time and my care and my concern and my attention, the people whom I re-create alongside, coach alongside, the people whose sons I coach … all of them are fucking assholes. They might not intentionally be assholes, but maybe just maybe I’ve surrounded myself with the wrong people who don’t give a rip that a dude is asking them to hang out.
I dunno.
What I do know is that I am sick and goddamn tired of well-meaning people telling me all the things I need to do and I need to consider and I need to examine. What I would love more than anything else is one of these people to fucking hear me and all I have done and have tried and have examined and then reply with some version of “Ya know, what, John? You’re right. You have tried … a LOT. You have done ALL the things. You’ve put yourself out there for years. You’ve made the invitations and tried a variety of things. You’ve examined yourself to see if it was you. You’ve done ALL of that. And ya know what, John? The world has treated you like SHIT in return. Whether these people meant to do so or not, collectively, these people have treated you like SHIT and THEY should be ashamed of themselves.”
It gets so goddamn tiring to hear all the things I need to do and I need to consider and effort I need to keep putting in and self-reflection I need to do. Just once I would love one of the few people in my life to say, “Yeah, John. FUCK this world and FUCK those assholes” and leave it at that, not follow it up with, “And you’ve gotta keep trying” or “have you tried …”
Because I have kept trying. For years.
And at this point, pardon me if I’m just more than a little tired. I’m tired, and I miss the few people who have cared for me through the years and who are gone.
So there I sat in the cafe, eating my stupid salad and drinking my stupid water. And I wondered: Am I really here?
Because it sure doesn’t seem like it.
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