Ever since the new year began, I've felt an uneasy stillness in the air. It's as if a lively crowd suddenly dispersed all at once. I don't know what it is that's causing me to feel this way, but with it comes a feeling of cosmic emptiness. It feels like there's nobody out there. It feels like closing time at a bar.
Is it politics? Is it the economy? Is it all in my head? I really don't know. I've always felt a certain measure of isolation and loneliness, but something about this feels much larger.
I am working on moving back to the city. I finally have enough money saved up that I can make the jump, but it would be like dismounting a burning rope ladder and trying to catch a second rope ladder in midair. It is also a very slow and boring process. That said, if I do it right and can recover quickly, I can snowball this move into greater financial freedom and social mobility.
Sometimes I wonder about those people online that go "crush me dommy mommy" or "spit in my face queen" or whatever. Is what they seek merely the idea of somebody subjugating them? Or have they experienced it firsthand and felt a confirmed sense of pleasure and belonging enough to genuinely crave that archetype? It seems like too often, people (myself included) will place certain concepts onto a pedestal as things to be desired. I speak in the context of feminine qualities because that's what I know and have seen others extol, but it happens with men, too. I suppose it's just an extension of how the sexes are and have always been idealized. Maybe it's just the newer generations learning how expectations crash into reality.
That said, I think the riotous fanaticism of the Internet has the potential to create disappointing (or worse, dangerous) standards for people. The Internet's current adoration of femboys only stretches into sexualization and pursuit as a romantic alternative to an increasingly alienated demographic of cisgender heterosexual women. The result is that female-identifying individuals get funnelled into standards of appearance and behavior that ironically limit what should otherwise be a freeing experience of gender affirmation and rejection of norms. Safe spaces get trampled upon by gooners looking to get a fix, and people fall into rabbit holes of objectification and self-loathing in an attempt to define themselves.
I guess at a certain point we must ask ourselves if we really do like the things we hold in such high regard, or if we merely like the idea of them existing in some self-skewed version of reality. How many people would still be willing to have a queen call them trash once they had actually experienced it? How many people would still be willing to taste a girl's penis after the first touch? What does it say about society, that we want things we may not actually want?
That's what college is for, really. It's about trying stuff and figuring out if it meshes well with the healthy, happy people we want to be.
What even is my point here other than a plain observation? I guess it's that the only way to know who you are is to realize the visions in your head and see how they make you feel. The only way to discover the best version of yourself is to be open to change and accepting of which doors have closed and opened. Maybe you get it right on the first try. Maybe you like women, try women, and realize that "yep, I definitely like women." Maybe you don't like men and are comfortable not testing that preference. Maybe you try something and realize you need additional research data. Maybe you boldly slip that girl's penis into your mouth and immediately realize that you can't see yourself enjoying this sort of thing.
I ask myself again--what is the point here? Well, belonging is important. I personally find it exhaustingly difficult to connect with people, and yet I find life to be generally unbearable without that element of connection. I find that the ways in which I idealize certain types of people or certain connections tends to set me up for disappointment when those experiences are actualized. You can't belong by yourself. The only way to belong is to interact with others, and that means taking a look at the qualities you desire and seeing which ones can truly make you happy and truly fill you with the will to not only live, but prosper.
No, seriously. Arrive at the point, GK.
I think the reason I feel such an ethereal, empty loneliness is because it feels like the great party of the 21st century has ended. Social groups seem like they are splintering away from a primary body like bits of interstellar rock off an asteroid burning up in the sky. With Elon Musk having fulfilled his dream of a digital ethnostate; with generative AI flooding social media and content platforms in tides of gray goo; and with short-form video serving as one part degenerative distraction and one part massive surveillance tool; it seems to me like the idea of everybody on Earth being reachable at once has finally crumbled. People are rightfully rejecting this global forum and seeking something smaller and more localized. But enough time has passed to where we don't really know how to meet "new" people anymore. So the existing people just kind of cluster together for warmth.
You know what? I'm probably never going to figure out where I was going with all of this. I guess I'm just surprised that after all the times I've been ignored and ostracized by different social groups, I still see an immense value in belonging with others. I guess that means I still want it after all. It's not just some fantasy I've placed on a pedestal. It has to exist somewhere.
Just not on Twitter.