It’s Friday, and I apologize, but I did not write a blog post yesterday (Thursday).  I also did not go into the office yesterday.  I was feeling a bit on the mend Wednesday morning, but by the evening, I was totally wiped out, and yesterday morning, I realized that I did not really have the strength to go to the office.  So I stayed at the house.

Believe me, I would have preferred otherwise.  I don’t really like the room where I live.  The only really positive things about it are, it’s where my stuff is, for what that’s worth, and it’s where I can’t randomly have people intruding on my time and energy.

It’s a bit of a paradox, or at least it’s a state with competing/conflicting forces and pressures acting upon it.  On the one hand, I am very lonely, and I really wish I had friends with whom I could speak and interact comfortably, and with whom I could do fun things.  But on the other hand, social interactions have just gotten more and more stressful for me over time, and I always feel like every relationship of any depth, that I have ever had in my life, I have screwed up, and that any future ones will likewise fall apart and fill me with regret will make my depression and loneliness even worse.

I’ve said it here before, but I am most certainly not convinced that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  There should be caveats about that skepticism, though, since simple answers are almost always incomplete.  The answer to that issue can depend very much on how one lost one’s love.  If one lost it because of basic force majeure, something beyond anyone’s control, it might not lead to a state of absolute regret, and is much less likely to engender (or worsen) self-loathing.

But if one loses love because the person one loves, and to whom one is dedicated, decides that one is just not worth it, that they don’t want to be with one anymore despite years of time together, because one is…challenged by various issues‒well, it can be hard to blame the other person for wanting to leave, or to blame anyone else for wanting to leave, and so it can be all the more devastating, making an already tenuous self-image ever worse.

And of course, romantic relationships are intrinsically difficult.  They are also very important in many ways, though I suppose that in a brutally “red in tooth and claw” world they would be a luxury at best.

I don’t know what point I’m making.  How did I even get on this subject?  Oh, right, I was discussing the fact that I don’t like the room in which I live but that at least I’m relatively free from having other people interlope without my invitation.

The prospect of moving somewhere else also feels too stressful to contemplate, frankly.  Again, this sort of stuff is easier if one has friends and loved ones/companions.  Even if they don’t contribute to a process, just having someone with whom to be able to relax is beneficial.

I didn’t realize how lucky I was in my young life to have been the third born of three kids, so I always had people older than I looking out for me.  I also stayed in the same school system from kindergarten through senior year of high school.  Then I stayed with a new, basic friend group through college, and that was helpful, especially since they were all people with similar interests and intelligence levels.

Then, of course, after college I got married and (apart from medical school) my wife was basically my “special interest”.  I think that’s sort of the way I am, at least about friendships and romantic relationships (though there is a very small sample size of the latter).

So, I didn’t really seek out or desire any serious other friendships while I was married.  Unfortunately, that meant that, once my wife “broke up” with me, I didn’t really have anyone around for support.  But there were people who were more than willing to take advantage of the things I was good at and who relied on the fact that I was not good at recognizing manipulations and ulterior motives and so on.

Then, of course, I ended up being a guest of the Florida DOC, precisely because I was such a handy sucker/fool.

I don’t know why I’m going into all this nonsense.  I don’t think it’s likely to achieve anything, except to convey the fact that I know I have gradually lost a lot of good things that I had that made me able to tolerate and even enjoy living in the human world.  But I didn’t know they served that function, and now that they are gone, I don’t know how to do it on my own.

Oh, well, it’s not like anyone is guaranteed any good things when they’re born, and even most of the things we think of as “rights” are not really something any part of nature lets us take for granted, apart from death itself.

On that upbeat note, have a good day, please.