Sunday 30 July 2006

Pic of the day: Well, I still have some relatives elsewhere. And LiveJournal friends. Surely that should count for more than 1.9?

"No love"

As mentioned yesterday, I took an online "rate your life" quiz. For the edutainment of my readers and my future self, if any, I comment on the various parts of it each day. Today, it is friends, family and (no) love.

OK, that's impressive. A plain zero on the love-meter! It's not just that I have never been married, never engaged, never lived with someone of the preferable sex. I've never dated either, never even been in love. Sure, I used to love my best friend approximately like myself, but I only loved her in the "here, let me buy you some stuff you can't afford right now" way, never in the "here, let me grab your breasts and hold them through the night" way. Even on our pseudo-dates, we always had some of her family nearby.

My own family, of course, is not nearby. I moved out at 15, though I stayed there during summer holidays for some more years. But as soon as I was grown up, I had started to think of myself as my family, whereas my parents and brothers were my "birth family". After all, a man shall leave his father and mother, as the Bible says. It says further that he shall cleave to his wife, but as I've described at length, I have a multitude of good reasons to break that particular commandment. I've certainly fulfilled the first part though.

These days I don't even have a best friend. I don't have friends in the fleshworld at all, just coworkers, who are OK people and quite helpful; but we don't share interests, much less goals, values or outlook. I hold no more hope for the neighbors. Finding people vaguely similar to me is hard enough when searching the whole world.

I do have some online friends, in a manner of speaking. A couple regular readers here, and a bunch of LiveJournal friends, forum friends and such. I even know how some of them look (although I only know how one of them look without clothes) but there are others I don't know the skin color of. Nor am I going to ask. It is not an important part of a person in my book. But it just goes to show exactly how far removed this is from the "party" and "hang out" type of friends most people think of as friends.

Of course this would have been different if I had really missed the sound and smell of humans around me. I am not shy. If I have some good reason to talk to people, I will do so more freely than the average human. I am sure people who have studied together with me can attest to this, or those who have attended courses or seminars together with me. But if I don't have a really good reason, I leave people alone and don't disturb them. "Do unto others..."

***

And now I'll pad out this entry with some lyrics from Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams, which I have listened to quite a bit lately. I just the other week discovered this group and their occasionally awesome music. I also love their songs Give me Novacaine and the king of emo songs, Wake Me Up When September Ends. But for today, let's listen to Boulevard of Broken Dreams:

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone...

There is only one thing to add to this: Waaaah! ^_^

Oh, and by all means watch them on YouTube if for some reason you have missed this beautiful song. Just google for "green day", "boulevard of broken dreams", youtube. Or follow this link while it still works.

***

Strangely, this gradually settling aloneness does not have the power to disturb me the way religion does. I guess it is because, after all, I don't feel alone. But I have already spoken about this often and at length, how there seems to be some invisible Presence with me. I don't boast, for I know I have not deserved this and I honestly do not know whether it will follow me into the afterlife. Perhaps it is something in my brain, or my psyche, and I just erroneously identify it as spiritual. I am sure that would be a comforting thought for everyone whose happiness depends on there only being this material world. But as it is, I can only say what I experience, and this is it.

I am not however so completely spiritual that it doesn't matter at all whether I am alone, and in particular without female company. But it doesn't matter desperately. It is no big deal. It is kinda like not having a couch. It would be nice to have a couch, but it is not really worth begging for. -- Actually I have a couch now, but for the previous 10 years or more I didn't, and I probably won't if I move again. Not that this has anything to do with anything. I just mean, it is possible to live without a couch even though most people have a hard time imagining it, and it is the same with real-life friends. You kinda get used to it.