I Know I am different and feeling lonely about it

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I know that I am different from the average person. I see it in my every day interactions and the way that I seek them out. There are times I revel in my uniqueness but there are others, such as at this moment, where it makes me feel lonely.

When I do interact with people, my interactions are deep and genuine. I learned early on in my life that I can’t fake an emotion well. So instead of trying to learn how to fake them, I went for the route of being honest about how I feel or aiming to just be as polite as possible if I thought I was going to hurt someone else or could possibly get hurt myself.

I enjoy talking with other people, especially if I get to know them. My interactions with a person and my understanding of their behaviors, such as if they are making a joke are based on knowing the type of person they are and past knowledge of how they act as much as their words and immediate body language.

As a result, something people notice is that, when they meet first meet me, I may be silent compared to other people. Only later will I really start interacting with them. I recall I only really noticed how odd this was compared to most people at the end of a week of overnight camping one summer, when the counselors handed out awards, I received the most improved camper award. The counselor explained that this was because the first night, I had been completely silent and withdrawn but by the last night I was open and friendly with my whole group.

Heck, I’ve even become aware that the level of self-contemplation I do unusual compared to the average person. I reflect on myself and others quite deeply. I make comparisons, I analyze everything. My peers, my friends, my family, myself. Our similarities and differences, are they good? Are they bad?

I also spend hours, even the better part of days, alone. Even now, in a small dorm style setting with a door open to a main room, living with two other people who I work with, I don’t interact much outside of work hours. I can go days without talking to them for more than fifteen to twenty minutes in all and then, come either a random moment or the next work day, I am happy to talk to them about anything and everything.

Sometimes, I feel like this is off…wrong. I feel guilty and alone despite having happily sought out my loneliness and purposefully secluding myself. I feel like I am being wrong by doing this, despite knowing that I sometimes need this alone time to keep from being overwhelmed.

I can’t help but wonder, but worry. Do they think I am rebuffing them, rejecting them? Does this reclusive behavior of mine detract from their view of me? Does it reduce my capacity to have a good, true friendship of them? I see no outward signs of hurt or resentment from them but I can’t help but wonder, since I figure that this is something people would try not to show, am I simply missing the signs and cues?

I think what really triggered these emotions so deeply today was that tomorrow, one of the people I have been living with for nearly six months is leaving today, to go home and spend a few weeks with her family before going work for the Peace Corp, going to Africa for years. She was talking about blogs and Facebook and I, like everyone else, talked about trying to keep touch with her.

I am truly happy for her. I hope she is extremely successful and have told her as much but, I know myself on the internet. I cannot hold a solid interaction on there for extended periods of time. Face Book is a place I rarely visit, barely ever post on and can often fall away from for months at a time. Emails are kept but I go through periods where I check them every day interspersed with others where I barely look at them at all. Heck, even my interest in coming to Wrong Planet comes and goes like the tide, with bursts where I am interested interspersed with much more time where I barely think about it at all. I’ve tried to be more active with my relationships through online means but it never lasts long. I have also seen people.

I’ve warned her to expect this but in the past, I haven’t told other people such things. I worry about how people I used to know must view my general silence. People who, despite barely interacting with or not at all in years, I think about a lot. Do they feel hurt or offended. Do they care at all or have I faded from their minds completely.

Part of me wants to reach out to some whom I have not talked to in years but there’s this voice in the back of my head. Do I have the right? Can I really just pop up and say “Hi, how are you,” after years of silence?

These thoughts tear at me and are accompanied by an actual physical pain in my chest. When they arise, they can leave me contemplating for hours during the day or bring me to tears as I lie in bed at night, too tired to block out my emotions and my fears about who I am and my relationships with the people who have come and gone in my life.
At times like now, I feel alone and hurt as I contemplate these aspects of myself and how impacts my life and the people around me.

I really can’t say what I’m looking for by talking about this on here. I just am having one of those moments where I was feeling lonely over my differences from others and wanted to reach out to people who might understand what I am going through.

I’m a lot like you. I find that this trait has been appreciated by many old acquaintances and friends whom I still think about and care deeply for.
It makes for QUALITY socializing (less quantity). I am a caring person and they like that I listen and value my words

So I think you should reach out if you feel the urge. I think they will be surprised but touched.
Just from your writing I can see that you are a genuine person.

I don't think you should feel wrong for being different. At the same time, I do understand feeling guilty for not keeping in touch with distant people better. I had a very good friend in another state I lived in 25 years ago. I was going through a bad patch in my life about 15 years ago and I stopped being in contact with old friends. I would love to re-connect with her, but I don't because I know I would most likely stop corresponding all over again. And then I would feel guilty about that.