And, should I change?
I’m 38 years old, single, not interested in starting a family (my mother was a drama queen and I couldn’t live that again with a partner or a child), don’t own any property, not really a consumerist person, I max my 401k and save 70% of my net income because most of the stuff society tells me to buy is irrelevant to me (I still own clothes I bought 20 years ago and they still fit me), don’t need a car and use a bike or public transportation, I prefer to cook at home because it’s cheaper and I can choose what I cook. I stopped drinking alcohol 10 years ago. I’m definitively not an extrovert.
I majored in philosophy because I liked it and I still do, but never found a job with my major. I tried being a high school teacher, but teenagers are way too much for me. Nursing, what I do now, is a versatile and safer job, even if I think it’s slowly killing me.
I feel cheated in life.
For 15 years I lived paycheck to paycheck paying off my debt, often having to move due to increased rent so this might be my way of coping with trauma. I still feel I’m way behind most people my age. I feel like a loser because I imagine them knowing better than me what they want in life.
It’s true that comparison is the thief of joy, but I cannot stop ruminating about this.
If you read my post history you’ll realize I don’t really care about my job, but stay because I need a paycheck and I like having a big rainy day fund. If I was a millionaire, I’d stop working. I don’t like any job.
It might be true that I’m autistic, because close human connections where never that important to me and most people I work with are not close to me, but as I’m nearing 40 I’m starting to think if my destiny is going to be to live and die alone in a nursing home. Sometimes this scares me, but I always go back to my apathetic, indifferent self, like I’m on some kind of drug that makes me not feel anything, neither good or bad, like my emotional brain is underdeveloped.
What I don’t want to be is this desperate loner craving for any kind of human attention turning to post his whole life online hoping a good Samaritan comes and saves me. First because it’s pathetic and secondly because that’s never a good foundation to build a friendship, I’d be inviting a predator, another crazy loner, a newborn Christian to save me with god, somebody trying to scam me with a MLM scheme or an antivaxer into my life. And I’m not a 20 year old discovering the world, I’m almost 40.
Every woman I’ve been attracted to has ignored me and every woman that showed an interest in me wasn’t good enough to me: she could be eager to make a connection, put an interest, even pretty and genuine but I cannot fake being in love or feeling attraction. I always ended up considering them as friends or acquaintances. I’m too old and too introverted (autistic?) to visit a club and try to impress a woman to go out with me.
I don’t think this is depression, depression would be me not going to work not even calling in sick.
It seems clear I need a friend, but I don’t know how to make friends anymore. I focused so much on surviving that I stopped caring about anyone else.
Best advice I have received: make a small change in any direction that would have a positive outcome if you succeeded. Set a goal, any goal, professionally, personally, socially etc. make it specific, measurable, and write down your experience. Break it into steps and if a step is too hard break that step into smaller ones.
There can be many mental health disorders that are functional illnesses. Many with chronic illness can actually live a regular life and no one would know what they have going on. It doesn’t mean it is not serious or debilitating. Mild depression is a thing, so is mild bipolar, mild schizophrenia or high functioning.
That being said the phenomenon you are describing is common nowadays without it being a mental illness. I haven’t met someone who hasn’t at least once in their life questioned their choices or felt lost about what to do next or how to do it.
There are many jobs you can do with a bachelor’s in any major. Most are office based. Some can be more hands on.
That being said not all comparisons are a thief of joy. There is a concept in DBT called the ACCEPTS acronym. One of the Cs is Comparison. But a positive one. For you. Compare yourself to someone in a lesser or more distressing situation. Or to a time when you, yourself were in a worse rut, if possible. This is also a form of cognitive reframing.
38 is still young. Plus 30s and 40s are where a midlife crisis can occur. Don’t go to clubs for friends unless you already know someone there. Try more neutral settings like a small class, group, volunteering, or a place where you would be alongside people with a common goal or interest. A lot more potential to find not so good connections in a bar or a club.
I agree it is hard to connect especially being an introvert myself. But you don’t need friends you just need one friend. There isn’t one set way to do it. Smaller settings with less people work and more opportunities to connect. Less social competition. Sometimes it is just a conversation with a neighbor that sparks something you might have in common. Then you or them invites the other to do something or show another something etc. It happens organically, gradually and unexpectedly.