ive been feeling real hopeless lately, like nobody loves me. what do i do? how do i get ppl to like me? how do you find love? srry this is venty i needed to talk to someone abt this i don't have a therapist
no matter what you ever do, even if you're perfect, there will always be people who don't like you. everything should always start with you being someone that you want to like in the first place. if you don't feel that way just yet, then keep evolving. there are some things sort of out of your control — for those things, you have to work on loving those parts of you as they are.
importantly, nothing matters. there is no intrinsic value to existence that can be deduced from an empirical perspective of the world. meaning and value is discovered and endowed by the sole observer that is yourself. you get to decide what actually matters to you. of course you have to still engage with the world on its empirical framework, so sometimes you will have to compromise in order to do certain things. but for existing, just internally, just in general, you should be deciding what matters to you. you can just do that. you can decide to care about something. you can also decide to not care about something.
we are social creatures, so we crave love, affection, and attention. above all else, we crave perception - that our existence and our experiences are validated by the observation and consideration of other social creatures. we don't always have the liberty of being able to have that, for one reason or another. to be a hypothetical but lonesome loner means that observers are even harder to come by. what you shouldn't do is coerce people, no matter how badly you think you need it. sometimes it just takes time to find the people who are ready to know you. sometimes it takes time to find community. the older you get, the longer you spend drifting around, you eventually find people. it's that period of uncertainty that bites the most. that's what makes art so important. there are still lots of parts of my life where i feel like i'm missing something. sometimes things i have go away, and then i miss that too. you can't supplement real, social perception with art, but you can simulate it and explore it in the safety of art. creating characters. they're your family, your friends, sometimes even your lovers. you can fall in love with an idea. the idea is real electrical impulses in your brain. you can decide that matters to you. it doesn't really matter if someone else won't take it seriously. you can't even prove they exist outside of your own conscious experience, they merely exist as a benefit of the doubt — so why give that skepticism credence?
you can't get people to like you if they don't want to like you. but there's no need to try and placate someone who won't naturally like you to begin with. if you're a faggy autistic outsider like lots of us are, people will be hostile to that. even other faggy autistic outsiders will be hostile to that, because you're faggy, autistic, and an outsider in a different way. in a way it seems like everything sucks. but the reality is that when you do, finally find that community, when you do finally come to that space that just makes sense for you, you'll be happy you didn't try to force anything. i've lived in so many social situations where i had to compromise so much of myself, transform so much of myself, just to fit into a crowd that i hated. i have been the desperate, imperfect lonesome loner that would do anything for one friend. you can't give into that. you need to sincerely hold onto your humanity and intrigue, the gentle consideration of the world around you, not to succumb to dollar store friendships that will just piss you off in the end. you have to be your own best friend before you can be someone else's best friend for life.
and if this is about romantic love? let me tell you from experience. the one thing you should never do is chase love when you're the most desperate for it. you cannot allow that to consume you whole. it's so extremely important that you be ready for love, that you know the responsibility it takes, that you're ready to truly love. i've made this mistake too many times, and i've caused too much grief for other people. and myself of course. when your perception of love and your ability to discern it with subtlety is matured and nuanced, only then should you really be seeking it. when it's burning, aching, horrifying, disgusting, and tearing you apart, you're not ready. it's really only when you're able to exist with out it, should you be finally open to existing with it.
maybe that doesn't sound like advice you want to hear. it could be a matter of wanting a tried and true fix to a complex social dilemma. well nothing is tried and true, because people keep changing. you keep changing. everything keeps changing. that's okay. everything would suck if it stayed the same. we trade comfort for chaos. there's a beauty and a grace in that. still, it turns the faggy autistic outsiders into adventurers of a social frontier that no evolved animal has ever been equipped to endeavour.
you'll be ok though. hope is one of the punkest things you can ever do. at face value, it seems like hope is just wishful thinking with the anticipation of something changing. surely it doesn't bring change on its own? but it does. hope keeps you going, where nihilism would abandon you. it changes your mind, and makes you keep going where you wouldn't otherwise. and if you keep going, you're moving in that beautiful, sweet, fourth dimension: time. so do some time traveling little punkfag. in the future, you've already figured it out.
