Life, Goals, and Happiness?

[PissFanOmega 206]

I apologize in advance for the length that this post may take.

Over the past year or so, I've had to do a lot of soul searching, following a break-up last year that left me broken and unsure about the future.

Today, I came to a conclusion that I think will eventually change me, and not necessarily for the better. To understand this a bit better, it's important for anyone reading this to know some things about me.

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First, I've always been an outsider. I didn't choose that life, it was assigned to me by society, and by facts related to my neurology. Despite that fact, I refused to settle for anything less than acceptance. I never got it when I was in school, and largely, I haven't gotten it since that time either, with a few rare exceptions.

My experience with dating is limited. In fact, I've never had the opportunity to go on an actual date with anyone. I've had limited experience with relationships, mostly due to not only my social status, but also the fact that [when I was a teenager] my parents would freak out whenever I would get close to anyone willing to explore the concept with me. The same attitude did not apply for my siblings, however. It was impossible for me to really get close with anyone at that time, or have a healthy sex life, which frankly carried over into my adult life as well.

My neurology makes it extremely hard for me to see subtle signs of interest in others. Non-verbal communication is impossible for me. I won't go into why, because it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that this is an issue I will always have.

In my adult life, I've only had one serious relationship; long-distance, which ended last year, suddenly. It led to an existential crisis that quite honestly has no resolution. It's about as dire as it gets, in that regard.

That, I suppose, is the best place to start the point I wish to make.

That existential crisis I mentioned? It made me realize something: Nothing truly matters. We're born, we suffer through life, we die. Only a rare few can claim the prize of having made a meaningful difference, and the rest of us are forgotten. The most we can hope for is that we're not miserable for the whole of our existence, however brief it may be. But the fact still remains that for the vast majority of us, nothing we do in life will mean anything.

So, what's the point of that?

Let me approach each of these topics with this concept in mind, and illustrate the realization I had today.

Goals

For my entire life, I've only wanted one thing: Companionship.

Not temporary companionship, but a life partner. Someone I could share life with, and grow with. Up until now, my goals have been aligned with making that possible.

But, it's too late for that now. At 34, I find myself single, and most people my own age have already done the things that I want to do for the first time with other people. There's no mutual growth there, in any capacity. Hell, most of the people I went to highschool with had kids by the time we were all in our early to mid-twenties. It's frustrating to see everyone around you get married and have a family of their own, while being stuck in the single life.

The thing is, the single life has never held any appeal to me at all, and it still doesn't. Having been alone and secluded for most of my life, it's unrealistic for people to assume I could be happy as such. If I could be fulfilled being alone and secluded, this would not be a conversation, to say nothing of a problem.

But I was left with a choice: I can either pursue the very thing I always have, and have been denied, or I can finally give up hope, and find new goals.

This may sound simple to many of you, but I'm an all-or-nothing kind of guy, there is no viable middle ground when it comes to finding love, not for me. I've tried living that life, where I search for my own success while being open to finding someone, and it has led me down the same path I find myself at the end of, right now.

To put it simply: The loss incurred from such an endeavor, outweighs the gain.

This led to the revelation I had today: Being single isn't the only thing making me unhappy. The repeated failures I've experienced, the rejections, the lost relationships, and everything that comes with those things... those are what is making me unhappy. The constant search yielding nothing time and again; that's what makes me unhappy. Because no matter how many times I try to find evidence to the contrary, I'm constantly confronted with the idea that I'm looking for the proverbial mermaid.

The irony in that is I'm not picky. Never have been. It's just that the issues I have to deal with, quite honestly, make it impossible for me to actually obtain what I want.

My experiences in life have hammered me down into a state where I feel I can do nothing but accept that this is the best it's going to get for me; stuck at low-income, in a studio apartment that's not as valuable as what I have to pay for it, being forced to depend on other people to get me from point A to B when I need to run errands, and having no social life outside of the internet, with no hope of that aspect ever changing, due to my lack of independent mobility, and the lack of safe social gathering locations in town.

Happiness

So, what the hell is happiness, anyway?

Self-delusion? Possible. Given the evidence, I would consider this a likely contender in 99% of life's scenarios.

Contentment? Being okay with yourself, and being okay with your situation are both great, but that isn't happiness. There's a reason we have different words for it, and those words carry different degrees of emotional attachment. Truthfully, "content" may be the closest I ever get to happiness again. Being happy is a nice thought, but if I had to, I could settle for simply not being unhappy anymore.

I wish I had an answer, but I don't. The only happiness I've felt in my life, was with the woman that left me last year, and with the childish pursuits of my youth (such as video games, and not having to care about money). The rest of it has been spent in unhappiness, depression, and worse.

Life

And finally, with all things considered, including that most of us will never make a real difference in the world, what is the point to life?

What do any of us get out of it?

What purpose does it actually serve?

Most people will never travel the world, or experience something surreal. Most will never even leave their home state/province, depending where they are in the world. You need money to do these things, and most people struggle to stay above the debt line.

Most people accept that they will never do those things.

Me? I know I'll never travel the world. That's real life. I also know I may never marry, or have a family of my own. That's also real life. I've come to learn that wishing for such is a waste of time; if only I'd learned that lesson sooner. If only I had been taught the reality of dating/relationships, that it's a rarity, rather than a normal part of life.

It may be that the closest thing I ever get to what I want[ed] is sitting at home, in my studio apartment, watching porn, and fantasizing about having a meaningful connection with someone else. And people seem to think that I should be perfectly okay with that.

Life is fucked up.

So, thoughts? Comments? Personal stories?

This isn't a pity party (despite the depressing nature of my life), so let it all loose.

Maybe someone here has some thoughts I had not considered, or maybe the answers to some of my tough questions.

In any case, happy conversing.

 

[Peefreak99 3,706]

My friend it's the modern world that has failed you and it fails everyone.  For example social media and fucking bullshit hollywood has created unrealistic ideals for a partner. Let's say we have a love movie were the guy is 2m tall has abbs and tons of muscles and perfect jaw lines etc. First of all he has so much makeup and second he has been on a STRICT diet and workout for months before the movie. And of course in the movie everything is perfect they love eachotter 100% of the time. When all love movies are like this people believe this is the reality. And second, many apps has filters that can make a "ugly" face look good so then everyone just see good looking people on these apps and then believe this is also the reality. And let's move on to dating sites/apps on tinder you can just swipe away someone if you think their eyes are too big or something. This creates spoiled people that learn that for the smallest thing you can swipe someone away because there are 10000 more options so why even bother trying to make it work then?. And these days what matters is social status and money and looks etc you can be a asshole but if you have 10k followers then it's ok!. So you have done nothing wrong it's the damn system that has fucked with you. And i can promisse you that everyone here is by your side i don't know you but i really do wish you find happiness and love and i know i speak for everyone here when i say that. I can't give you much advice im afraid but try and look for others that also want to stand outside this system don't waste your time on the brainwashed mass.