Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Doesn't Play Well with Others

I have spent my entire life as a loner.  It's something i wonder about, how i got stuck in the corner and have never been able to find my way out.  It started about the time i went to preschool and seemed to just snowball from there.  I as socially awkward and/or inept.  I am always alone.  I seem to have missed a memo or a dozen about certain social niceties and rules that are inexplicably complex.  I alternate between wanting to do what others expect and, quite honestly, not giving a frak.  I have asked a couple of people to explain it to me, and they all unfortunately declined, but i quite frequently feel as if the entire universe has it out for me, as if they hate and barely tolerate me, as if no one likes me and everyone only wants to use me.

At school this was a simple assumption.  I had few friends to speak of, and most were hinding things from me.  Those people who were sometimes nice to me, sometimes not, always wanted something from me (for example, help with homework).  Between telling me to my face that i was fat, using me and then ignoring me, being rude when i refused to be used, it was all discouraging.  This is all completely separate from the psychologial anguish i went through in volleyball, band, and praise team at church.  But this has become the story of my life with work and college only becoming new variations on this theme.

On WoW, things have taken a slightly different form.  In BC, sometimes this was guildees wanting to be carried in dungeons/raids only to abandon us once they had better gear.  From Wrath onward it has taken a more painful route...younger men wanting to use me as a sympathetic ear about their problems, usually involving women, but not always.  These "men" generally still live at home, have little to no real responsibilitiy in RL, have more time online than they really need to have, and are better geared than i am.  They give me gifts that i do not ask for, gifts that do not mean a lot to them but seem extravagant to me.  And then they proceed to pull me down emotionally.  They spend all their available time with me for a while, then disappear.  The emotional toll of this is personally high.  It's not that i get too involved, it's that it's very draining and frustrating.  I don't know how to set good/healthy restrictions, i don't know how to handle them, i drown and then they cut and run.  The main reason i let them do it?  Because they are the only people who give a frak about me.  They're the only people who will help me or spend any time with me at all.  No other guildees gives a frak about me, i have no other friends, etc.  I hate it.

Right now i am most upset about Blizz and WoWInsider.  With Blizz, i pay for a service, it doesn't get delivered, i ask for help, i am ignored.  With WoWInsider i applied for a job and received no response...but even more i leave a Q4tQ and am ignored.  I comment on the Blizz forums and receive little to no response.  What response i receive is not helpful.

I hate being ignored.  I hate being alone.  And yet both are a perpetual state for me.  I did not choose this.  Everywhere i go, this is how i am treated, and it hurts.  It's frustrating.  It's exhausting.  And i feel like it permeates every area of my life, both RL and online, my writing, any online community i try to join, people use me and dump me, people shut me out and hurt me.  Everything is pain and there's never any gain, but without the pain there never will be any gain.  What the frak am i doing wrong?

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