Encounter

I’ve been letting myself get too lonely. It’s not good for me.

I’m not naturally very drawn to people. I like to joke that I’m the most introverted person I know — because I’m so introverted I don’t know all that many people.

I’ll see people when I’m working on my DoorDash deliveries, but that’s about it. And you know how that is. The people I see are either customers or restaurant workers, so those are very surface-level interactions. Probably the last time I intentionally spent time face-to-face with another human being was at the beginning of June, or maybe even May.

I’m not drawn to socializing. At all. In fact it terrifies me. Not really because I’m afraid people won’t like me, because I have decent surface-level social skills, but more that I’ll be absorbed into them and lose myself in a lot of entanglements and never be able to get away again.

In a weird way, I think I’m more afraid of being liked than I am of being disliked. And I’m definitely afraid of liking anyone too much, because my life and sanity are on a delicate enough balance as is, so the last thing I need is for anybody else to be making demands on my time. Because how am I supposed to write and do the work to pay the bills and have any kind of social life? Not to mention getting out into nature or going on a vacation or anything. Who has the time or money for that?

That’s probably a common enough problem.

This is going to sound bad, but here goes: the main interest I have in my fellow human beings comes from my sex drive. If you’re one of my regular readers I’m sure you know sex is one of my recurring topics. To say I’m deeply ambivalent about the subject is an understatement.

On the one hand, it’s something I think and write about obsessively.

On the other hand, I don’t do anything about it.

So in some subterranean way I’m getting a perverse enjoyment out of constantly dwelling on my separation from what I want. As if I wouldn’t have any sense of myself as myself if I didn’t have that gnawing sexual frustration always weighing on me.

Or maybe I’m just afraid of sex. Because with sex I not only have all the fears I have about being around people, but also all the unique fears that have to do with sex. What if she doesn’t like me and I get rejected? But even worse, what if she does like me? And what if she likes me enough to want to have a relationship with me, and what if (horror of horrors!) I like her enough that I want to have a relationship with her? And what if someday she wants me to ask her to marry her, and what if (the mother of all terrors!) I want to ask her to marry me?

Ye gods!

Maybe it’s better just to be bitter and frustrated and avoid women altogether. There’s too much danger. Too much uncertainty. Too much potential to hurt and be hurt.

And yet…

I might as well spill what got me thinking about all this.

I was waiting around at a McDonald’s to pick up a DoorDash delivery. This pretty little blonde came in after me. Of course the moment I see her I feel this immense pressure to talk to her, just to prove to myself that I can do it even though it terrifies me.

And I waited around a bit, didn’t want to look too eager. (And also I couldn’t think of what to say, you know how that is.)

I caught her looking in my direction once or twice, which is always an encouraging sign. Body language was good, too: arms open and uncrossed, standing closer to me than she really had to be, and while she wasn’t exactly facing towards me, she definitely wasn’t facing away from me. Even noticed her flip her hair once, come to think of it.

And eventually I went over to talk to her a little, and she was nice. Had a sweet, kind of high-pitched voice.

Just idle chit-chat, really. Mostly about a run-in I’d had with the cashier, and that kind of thing.

For all I write about women here, it’s amazing how cautious and hesitant I still am when I meet the real thing out in the wild.

For all I know she was just being polite. Just making conversation and laughing at my jokes. You never can tell, really.

I should’ve bit the bullet and asked for her number, but I chickened out.

I’m a little rusty, let’s say. Not that I was ever really comfortable approaching women I don’t know, but (like I said) it’s been three or four months since I’ve intentionally been face-to-face with another human being. So cut me some slack.

Please?

Anyway.

“So what?” you might say. “Nothing came of it.”

And that’s true. But I felt a lot better. It’s a little embarrassing to admit how much better a little, inconclusive interaction like that made me feel.

You’ve probably read some of the kind of crappy things I’ve said about women. And those feelings are real, and I’m going to have to work through them somehow.

But a lot of the hostility I’ve felt towards the female gender evaporated right there — temporarily, no doubt. It meant a lot to me to have that pretty little blonde talk to me without immediately shrinking away in fear and disgust. (Because part of me expects that to happen every time I talk to a woman.) To have her talk to me, laugh a little, who knows, maybe even find me a little bit attractive?

It was nice. Made me feel a little more like a human being and a little less like a horrible monster that ought to be locked up.

…

I feel like every day I reveal more about myself that I’d like to keep hidden even though it desperately needs to be seen. Again, it embarrasses me how much that little conversation meant to me.

I said at the beginning that I’ve been letting myself get too lonely. Because I might not be much drawn to social interaction, but it’s a real need. Nasty parts of my psyche emerge when I keep to myself too long.

I’ll have to get out and among people more often. Can’t always be trying to fit the world in through my phone screen.

It’ll take some new behaviors and some new habits. But it needs to happen.