Let me interrupt you and say, no, you do not understand.  At all.  This is not one of those things that you relate to just because you are able to imagine it.  The key word here is: imagine.  Look at it this way, I can totally imagine being abused by an alcoholic father, but I can never understand what it’s like because I have never actually been abused, nor is my father an alcoholic.  I can imagine what it is like being addicted to cigarettes by using my addiction to goldfish crackers and obsessive need to fantasize about sex and romance whenever I get stressed out, but at the end of the day, I cannot “totally understand” what it is like to feel that unending desperation to light up a cigarette and feel nicotine coursing through my veins.  I cannot “totally understand” what it is like to feel many things, to be in situations that require extreme financial responsibility, to be terrified of losing something very precious.  When people talk to you about their problems and their lives, you should heed it as an opportunity to learn something about them, not utter monosyllabic responses like “Yeah” or say you can “totally understand”.

Look, fuckers, this is something that has been bugging the shit out of me the majority of my life.  This blog has nothing to do with drug addiction.  It has nothing to do with food, being pressured by parents, financial burdens, fighting someone else’s war, or even love and relationships.  It has to do with isolation.  And I am not talking about the kind of isolation where one has been exiled for committing an unspeakable sin in some seventeenth century town.  I am not talking about the blissful isolation on some small island surrounded by all of your favorite items.  I am not talking about solitary confinement achieved through criminal means, but solitary confinement of the soul - the bare and ultimate confinement of one’s own mind and heart because he or she does not possess the genetic material to blend in with the masses.  He or she cannot, and often times, will not, lower his or her standards or submit to the general selfishness and ignorance reinforced by members of society. 

Before you even nod your head in agreement at this, let me assure you, you do not “totally understand” this.  I refuse to believe the majority of you can comprehend the things I am about to say, because these words are coming from a twenty-two year old kid who has spent the majority of his life ahead of his peers, always more emotionally mature, always more empathetic, always willing to suffer so that others do not.  Always willing to feel - and feeling has become a latent human trait nowadays.  Feeling is something the majority of you do not “totally understand”.  This social isolation involves knowing that you do not think like others.  It involves countless nights staring at the ceiling, sometimes on the verge of tears (or beyond), asking yourself, “Why?” over and over again.  It involves being torn between continually socializing at some friend’s apartment or downtown and coming home feeling empty, or just staying home avoiding all social situations and feeling even more empty.  Either way, you’re empty.  Either way you’re asking yourself why you are so different, almost wishing you were not, but then feeling guilty because who you are is someone to be admired, someone better and smarter and worthier. 

So what the hell do you do?

You sit there with people you call friends.  They laugh.  Their laughter sounds awful.  They joke.  The jokes are redundant and offensive.  They forget about you.  You’re used to it.  They need you around to talk to for two hours about their problems.  You listen.  They don’t bother asking about your life.  You try talking in vain.  You go home and sigh, because that’s all you can do, sigh, because you have been through it many times before so why should now be any different?  How can it?  There have been times in the past where you’ve cried, gotten angry, screamed, did things you regret all for the sake of companionship, all for the need to remove yourself from isolation. But now, now you have just grown so numb and empty and just….so past the point where it almost feels like apathy.

You still do not “totally understand”. 

It takes years to get to this point.  I’m not talking about pretty girls that feel oh-so-pressured by society and stuff and have it so hard because “I feel like I have to impress all my girl friends and be a whore so boys will like me.”  I’m not talking about sexually curious boys that want to feel up their frat brothers but repress that part of themselves by acting like a douchebag and screwing every girl in close proximity.  No.  That’s called being fake.  That’s called not being yourself.  I’m talking about actually being yourself, and when that somehow is not enough.  Scratch that, it’s enough for everyone in the whole goddamn world to take advantage of you, to love you, to admire you, to want you, to need you in their lives, but when are you looking for it all in return what do you get?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  And that is what kills, absolutely kills.  That is what leads to years of disappointment, cynicism, and this unbearable isolation you hate yet have grown accustomed to. 

It hurts.  It sucks.  And anyone who is a shitty friend that claims to “totally understand” this can go to hell.