Tired and lonely

Haven't posted much of late. It's possible the world just isn't generating as much material as I'd like, but I doubt that: almost seven billion people (due to be seven billion and change sometime very soon) living their lives can't help but do at least a few things that excite my interest.

It's also possible that, like Howard Beale, I just ran out of bullshit. And yet, low though my opinion is of my opinions, I can't say that they're bullshit. Misguided, perhaps; ill thought out, possibly; but never disingenuous or fake.

No, I think I've hit my midlife crisis. A ridiculous cliche, to be sure, but why should I be exempt from this first-world problem?

Mine takes a slightly unusual form in that it's centered not so much on a desperate effort to hold on to vanishing youth (though there's some of that going on) as on an abrupt realization that I'm not only alone, but lonely.

I've assumed I was something of a rare bird, able to live without a significant other. It was a win all around, inasmuch as the last thing I would have wanted would be to have driven some poor soul nuts coping with my numerous neuroses.

The last couple of weeks, though, I've been going nuts for lack of meaningful human contact. I've seen people socially, but either they aren't terribly close to me or they are close but I haven't been able to carry on a deep, meaningful conversation with them due to peculiarities of circumstance.

One of the upsides of being a passing stranger is that you don't get so close to people that you find yourself sucked into their lives.

That's one of the downsides, too. You have no claim on anyone else.

Another downside is, you don't get any practice at intimacy. Paddling in the shallow end doesn't develop your swimming skills.

What will happen to me? I don't know. I might find someone: that's certainly conceivable. On the other hand, I'd be unwise to bet heavily on that outcome.

One way or another, this will pass. In the meantime, I deem it to be something of a public service not to agonize further about it here.