Why I'm here

Really, I should stop whining about not having anyone to talk to. That's the purpose of this blog--to keep up the conversations in my head as if there were someone listening. Somewhere along the line, I started to get concerned about reader interest, but I never started writing here for anyone except me. It was because I really had no one to talk to.

I tried to explain to Frank tonight that it's hard for me to try to be the person that everyone else likes--especially since that means I need to be someone different in at least five different contexts a day. First I have to figure out what each person (who matters) likes and doesn't like. Then I have to remember which traits to assign to myself and produce on demand depending on who's around me. It has been exhausting.

More than exhausting, it has been frustrating. It has resulted in failure. Despite my efforts at presenting the custom-tailored personality on demand, I still have no one to talk to on a regular basis. I'm annoying in any context. Boring, too, apparently. How embarrassing is that? Frank isn't interested in any of the things I would normally talk about in the course of the day. He actually came out and said that about a year-and-a-half ago. I was down to what I thought was the last topic I could still chat about, but Frank was standing there at the kitchen sink. He stopped what he was doing, looked me in the eye, and said, "I just don't care. This isn't anything I have any interest in hearing about."

And here's the part of that that really sucks. He goes on and on and on every day about the same four topics: Thuy, the annoying woman he works with, public policy related to federal funding where he works, fixing the upholstery on his car seats, and the dog. Now, for the most part, I've heard it all many times over--it's just variations on a theme, but at least I am polite enough to listen and to bite my tongue and to not blurt out that I don't give a shit about whatever it is he's going on and on about. I don't walk away, interrupt, or change the subject while he's mid-sentence. This is my life, though, and exactly what I experience every day at home and outside of it.

I know I need to just shut the fuck up. I get it--I have nothing of value to say and I'm fucking boring. Still, is it so goddam hard for people to be somewhat polite, tolerant, and at least pretend to be engaged--like I do?

When I pointed out to Frank that I had essentially stopped talking at home, I also said it was painful to me that he hadn't really noticed. He said he had noticed, but assumed that I just didn't feel like talking. Then he accused me--as he often does--of intentionally remembering everything he says that I don't like. Well, yes, I told him, that's exactly what I do because all of those things are lessons--they are the things I need to catalogue and remember because that's what becomes the rules about how I'm supposed to behave. If something makes you unhappy, I need to never forget it so I can make sure not to do it again. I've done this my whole life, and as the third child in the birth order, I always observed what got my older siblings in trouble so I would know not to do whatever that was.

If I could take a vow of silence, I would, but it's not how my brain is wired. I still feel compelled to talk. I told Frank that the anxiety and effort of trying to remember all of these lessons so I don't disappoint or exasperate anyone is proving not to be worth it, and what I really want is to just be dead so it will be over, so it will stop, so I can stop. I told him that I have nothing. The house is his, not mine. I have no friends here--not even remotely close by. I have nothing. Trying to be me hasn't worked out, and trying to be who everyone else likes me to be hasn't changed anything, either. What's the point? My whole life has become about trying to make other people more comfortable, and in return I get...the loud and clear message to be neither seen nor heard.

Frank told me I should go back to therapy, but therapy is stupid--a scam. I am through paying someone to sit there and listen to me. That may be the most humiliating thing I've ever had to do to give myself the illusion that someone is paying attention.