The Whitespaces of Loneliness
I am not lonely because I am unloved. I want to be clear about that. My parents, my close friends, I can see the love, I am grateful for it. This isn't about that.
This is about the love I have to give, and nowhere to put it.
I've tried talking about it. With the close ones. They listen, they get it but they don't feel the weight of it. How could they?
There's a text I have written and deleted more times than I can count: "I feel like crying because I can't find [deep connection]." I never send it. It becomes "ahghhh loneliness hitting like a brick lol", same feeling, but filtered. I do the same thing out loud. I tell the truth, but always through a filter. Always translated into something easier to receive.
I know how that sounds. I've tried the unfiltered version. I've put it down in front of people and watched them not know what to do with it. They have their own lives, their own weight. My loneliness is not their problem to carry.
So they see the words. They never see what it looked like to write them.
I don't think of it as a void. A void implies something is missing from me, some hollow that needs filling. It isn't that.
It's more like a part of me that has never been used. An outlet, sealed shut.
I want to love someone. I want to look at a woman and slowly learn everything, her dreams, her ambitions, the things that keep her up at night. I want to listen to her vent about her dumb workplace. I want to tuck her hair behind her ear. I want to look into her eyes and see the world reflected back. I want to know her. That's not a fantasy, it's just a capacity I have. Fully formed. Waiting.
And no amount of self-love or community fills that. I know that's not what you're supposed to say. But it's true.
Relationships are more complex than that, but that is also the reason for the smaller things to be special.
My friends tell me I'm attractive. Vehemently, almost, like they're trying to convince me of something. I look in the mirror and feel nothing either way. Not insecurity, not pride. Just indifference. Because their observation is external. It lands on me and slides off.
If it were true, I think to myself, where is the evidence? I don't say that to be dramatic. I say it because it's the honest question. And the honest question makes people uncomfortable.
So they say: "you'll find someone when you least expect it."
Everyone looks at the stray dog and says it's cute. But the dog asks: why don't I have a home then?
That answer makes people uncomfortable. So they divert. What they say isn't advice for the dog. It's to protect themselves from having to say the thing they don't want to say out loud.
I want to reiterate that this is a me problem, something I need to get better at handling.