I feel lonely on Halloween. I want to be with my spookingly dressed up friends and to party with them. But once again I can’t do that, since I don’t live near them and I am in a place where Halloween is barely celebrated. I’ve been wanting to go to a proper Halloween party for a very long time, but I haven’t had the opportunity. I didn’t have many friends (if any) for a long time and once I got proper friends, I couldn’t be with them, because they’re in other countries.
Everybody nowadays is talking about the loneliness epidemic, but for me this is nothing new. I’ve always struggled to make friends and even if I had friends, I mostly considered them as acquaintances and I didn’t feel comfortable opening myself up around them.
It has always been like that. I can somewhat easily engage with people, I can talk, and I try to be normal, but I can’t engage more deeply than that, so my acquaintances are very superficial and don’t turn into real friendships. I also think that I have a very narrow definition of a friend, since my definition is someone else’s definition of best friend. But I hate the term best friend. I get reminded of me being in high school and trying to be best friends with someone that didn’t consider me that. I would get jealous of people posting on Facebook about their best friends. Funnily enough, those people would post about a new best friend every few months and would compliment people that they would shit talk on their backs. I never understood these social dynamics. How could someone compliment someone on social media, if in real life they barely talk to them or would talk badly about them? I think that might be one of the reasons I never had many friends. I didn’t understand all these social unspoken rules and I didn’t have the energy for that and, honestly, I still don’t.
But I remember feeling jealous about other people getting birthday posts from their friends, being tagged in photos, having people comment on their posts, etc., since I didn’t have many of those kinds of things. I believe I saw those actions as proof that people loved you and I didn’t feel loved. I would just be tolerated, it would make no difference if I was there or not. I still feel the same most of the time.
Like I mentioned in other entries, I did a traineeship in a big institution and all the trainees had extra social activities outside of work. At first I thought I was doing so well socializing. I was making good eye contact, talking with people, networking (I hate this word), trying to be pleasant in some way, I was making an effort. However, I am not funny, not very talkative and I don’t have many interesting things to talk about, so, like it had happened before, I was just tolerated.
I don’t believe in body language reading, however when there is a group of 4 people and the other 3 people avoid eye contact with me when talking to everyone, only whisper in between themselves and turn their body away from me, I think it was pretty clear, they didn’t care about me. It’s something without a lot of importance and I don’t want to be around people that don’t care about my presence, but remembering about these little things still makes me cry.
Because it wasn’t just this little situation, but all the other little situations. I saw how groups were formed in between people that had things in common: they were from the same department, from the same country, or lived in the same area during the traineeship time. I thought “maybe if I had someone else from my country” or “maybe if I lived closer to these people” or “maybe if I was doing my traineeship in a different department”, but now I know it wouldn’t make any difference. It did not in the past. The problem is me. Whatever it is: either because I might be neurodivergent (idk if for sure I am) and I can’t make friends that are neurotypical due to the double empathy problem, or because I am boring and not fun to be around, I just know the problem is me.
It doesn’t matter how much effort I put into being someone that people might want to be around, because it is never enough. For me it’s a lot of effort, but for others it’s not, because they don’t struggle with it and they don’t appreciate my efforts. I haven’t been contacted by anyone since the traineeship ended, except for messages in the general chat. I don’t dislike any of the other trainees, in fact, I miss socializing with them, but I wish I was able to have a deeper connection with some of them.
I have very few friends and I am ok with that, but it’s hard when they live in another country and I can’t be with them most of the time. I talk to them everyday at least. I also know they are neurodivergent, so maybe that’s another indication that I am also neurodivergent and that is why we are friends. I never felt the need to pretend to be more interesting than I actually am with them. The thing is, they’re men. I always feel so bad when I hear some idiot on the internet saying that they suspect women that only have men as friends. I didn’t choose to only have men as friends and I am not not like the other girls or dislike women in any way. I also don’t really care that much about gender, however, sometimes I wish I had a female friend. Maybe it wouldn’t make any difference, but I think it would be nice.
It feels so embarrassing to write about this, especially on a website that might be read by someone. It feels like a personal failure of mine that I try to fix, but I am not totally able to.

I feel like I can’t focus on anything. I spend the days just doing menial tasks, like cleaning, cooking and doing laundry, or just browsing the internet and trying to find videos to watch and listen to. But I am unable to engage with new interesting media, like watching a new movie or series or listening to new music or just music I like in general. I also feel physically tired and drained, but it could be from my bad sleep schedule. Any inconvenience makes me angry and it doesn’t help that I’ve been having quite a lot of inconveniences in the last few weeks. I also find myself stopping my gaze and staring at random things all the time. I think the lack of routine and something proper to do is getting to me. I wanted to start learning things and acquire new skills so I could improve my job hunting opportunities, but I feel like my brain is so tired and that I can’t concentrate or initiate any task that requires more thinking than “1+1=2”. Even writing for this website feels like a big chore. I hate feeling this. I was raised with the mindset that I always had to be doing something, otherwise I’d be called lazy, which in hindsight is not a very healthy mindset. I constantly feel like a failure because of that. I always think that I could be doing something actually useful, instead of just browsing on the internet or doing things that don’t matter at all. And by useful I just don’t mean work, but something like going on a walk, exercising, making art, but I just feel like doing the thing that requires the least amount of effort. It feels that I can’t relax, even during times of rest. I wonder if I am burned out.

I said that now I had more time to write, yet I haven’t written anything in over a week. I am still in a transitional period of a transitional period, so I have a lot of logistical stuff to figure out. I was temporarily living in a medium sized city, because I was doing this traineeship in a bigger nearby city just across the border, however the traineeship money I got wasn’t enough to live in that big city, so I decided to live in this smaller and cheaper city in the nearby country. And honestly, I’m glad I did because the city I was living in is much more enjoyable than the one I was working in and I also know the local language much better. I really enjoyed living there and I miss it already even though I left only a few days ago. I miss biking along the river and roaming through the streets lined with Roman and Art Nouveau buildings. I just wish it was a little bit bigger and had more cultural stuff and better transport connections, but other than that it’s the type of city I like.
Since I was there temporarily I had to leave the place I was living in and I had to stay with a friend for a few days in a village nearby, then I had to move again to another city for a few days with people that I know since I was a baby, for logistical and travelling reasons. Tomorrow I’ll be finally taking a flight back to my home country. I love flying, but I hate the stress of going to and through an airport. I feel like it’s the only thing I can do the entire day. It exhausts me so much, I could never be a flight attendant.
I wish I didn’t have to go back home, I wish I could have gotten a job immediately and stayed where I was or found a job somewhere. Thankfully, this week I got two good responses to job applications, they’re still in the very early stages of the application and I probably won’t get the jobs, but at least it’s an indication that there is some hope for me and that this traineeship wasn’t a total waste.
But I also wonder if I really want to do those jobs. They’re in cities I don’t particularly enjoy very much and lately I’ve just been wondering in what kind of place I do want to live. I am 30 now (even though I don’t feel like it and most people don’t really treat me like I am 30) so I would like to settle down for sometime in one place. If I exclude my hometown, I’ve lived in five different places since I turned 18 years old and I have lived only between three years and six months in each place. It is very hard for me to find friends and build a proper community, especially when you have to leave the place just eight months later. Even if I find some kind of community, it’s always lost when I eventually move. I also can’t form a long term romantic relationship either, which is really frustrating when you’re 30 and you’re at the age that you are supposed to have a long term relationship or marry. I don’t care about marriage and I don’t want children, so I don’t feel the clock ticking in, but I do want a long term partner that will understand me, accept me for who I am, and not abuse me, which apparently is a hard thing for me to find.
Like I said in my previous entry, I hope my stay in my hometown will be short and that I will find a nice job, so I can start properly building and establishing my life. I guess that’s what being an adult is or something.

Finally got some time to write and to dedicate to this page. Lately, I have been preparing for a test for a job and applying for other jobs. Half of test didn’t go well and I haven’t had any luck with job hunting, so I don’t feel very hopeful or happy right now. Like anyone, I hate job hunting, but for me it feels harder because I am constantly doubting my skills, even though I have good education and experience. But what I doubt the most about are my social and speaking skills. I have social anxiety and I am possibly neurodivergent (idk for sure yet), so social interactions, networking and job interviews are very hard for me and very draining. I just want a proper job that gives me some financial security, nothing too fancy or highly paid, I just want to be independent.
Also another thing that makes me depressed is the fact that I have to go back to my parents house, while I search for a job. I moved to another country to do a six months traineeship in a good institution, but since I finished I haven’t found a job yet, so I have to move back for now. I hope it is for a short amount of time. I hate living in my small home town. People are judgemental and close minded, it feels like I am being constantly monitored and that I can’t be my real self. Also living with my parents feels restrictive and like I can’t grow as a person.