On loneliness

Hello Veeky Forums.

Can you please recommend some really good books on loneliness, regret and alienation? I can't exactly explain what kind of state I am in right now except that the feeling of loneliness and isolation and alienation has become more and more pronounced over the past few years and of late has left me as an emotional wreck. Some days are really bad when I can't keep myself together and end up crying because of how much it has begun to affect me. The combination of loneliness, guilt and regret at fucking things up with the one girl who used to care about me and in general being an unwanted loser who struggles to form any long lasting close relationships.

Some books that i have adored till now:
Notes from underground - Dostoevsky
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
No longer human - Osamu Dazai


I want to know if there is any great work that tackles loneliness in particular (And with a lot of incisiveness) or is in general a great book to read when in such a depressing hellhole. I have been thinking of "befriending" loneliness. To accept it and acquiesce to it is one thing. To actively cherish it's constant presence is another. Is that even possible?


A little background: I made a few friends in college who i was close to but they all scattered after getting jobs and I went abroad for higher education during which I haven't found the time or energy to make long lasting friends. Just a few acquaintances who recognize me. Also I completely messed things up with the one girl who i was in a relationship with and felt strongly about. The one girl in my entire life who actually gave half a fuck about me doesn't want to be with me anymore because i messed things up so bad.

Other urls found in this thread:

stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list/388282#388282
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Journey to the end of night
The man without qualities
Maldoror
Diary of an oxygen thief

...

I'm sorry you feel isolated, OP.

I haven't finished it yet myself, but Infinite Jest?

my diary desu

Well Pessoa is just about the loneliest soul I've ever encountered so I'd recommend the book of disquiet.

>The one girl in my entire life who actually gave half a fuck about me doesn't want to be with me anymore because i messed things up so bad.
If you're going to turn Veeky Forums into your personal blog you can damn well elucidate.

Kafka's Metamorphosis seems an obvious addition. Possibly relevant depending on your elucidation.

thank you anons. pessoa has been on my list for quite some time. might as well pick him up next.

So sorry for the personal ramblings. I just wanted to give some context and decided to throw some recommendations of my own to add some value to the post. I can elaborate but its sort of twisted and heartbreaking. You'll call me a damn fool if I tell you how it went down in flames.

Thank you for the recommendation user. I have heard infinite jest is sort of long and complex and i barely get time due to studies but i will try to pick it up some time this winter.

>I can elaborate but its sort of twisted and heartbreaking. You'll call me a damn fool if I tell you how it went down in flames.
That's exactly what I was hoping for. I'll play nice, I promise.

Please tell us what happened, I'd be willing to listen.

Yea OP. You have our collective ear.

Also waiting. Hopefully some life lessons in store but probably will just be the manual for how to avoid autism.

We're all 2 clicks away from a worse story anyway. r9k > first thread in catalog. Lose those inhibitions, Opea.

>Hopefully some life lessons in store
Yeah. Hopefully Santa's dropping a bad bitch down my chimney Christmas day, too

CRASH! We got a golden retriever.

Since people are asking I'll elaborate.

Over the past year or two I had begun to feel more and more alienated. I had a few close friends in college but for some reason, I felt acutely alone most of the time. It began to terrify me. It didn't help that they all seemed to be having a blast while i was in a constant state of dissatisfaction about life in general. I felt ashamed for not having secured a job as good as theirs (which in retrospect doesn't matter because it was still a good job it but fucked with my head a lot). I felt ashamed about myself and my worth in general.

In may of this year, A friend one day asks me to go on a date with this one girl. I am reluctant of fucking up again but decide to give it a shot. It goes really well and she's amazing! Kind, compassionate, beautiful and most importantly, the first girl who i meet who seems to care about me. She even gets upset when i don't call her and wants to meet often! This is blowing my mind because for the first time in my life i am experiencing something other than apathy or rejection. I shower her with affection. Care for her as much as I can. Go to great lengths to find out what she likes and dislikes and she says that she feels special and appreciates everything I do for her. Things are going well.

By july, I end up falling heads over heels for her and feel extremely attached (even though I know I am moving to a different continent the next month for higher education). One day we have a small/trivial fight. I apologize profusely and end up getting scared that i might have begun to mess up. To compensate. I'd sometimes get drunk and call her telling her how strongly i feel for her. She begins to ignore me somewhat. I get scared. I thought she wasn't feeling cared for enough so I follow it up with even stronger confessions of how much i feel about her. She ignores me even further. I have no idea why she's doing this and ask her but she doesn't open up. The more i call/text her, more she withdraws. It breaks me. I feel like i fucked up. I start drinking more. Writing her emails and telling her how much she means to me and that i would do anything to be a better person for her. And that I just want her to be happy. Being a pathetic hyperemotional fool. Things don't improve and she keeps ignoring me more and more.

I beg to meet her 1 day before i depart for the other continent. She agrees. On meeting, she seems completely disinterested. I'm trying to make her laugh or smile or care but she doesn't want to talk too much or spend too much time. It's the last time i'm seeing her and i ask her if i can hug her before she leaves. she leaves angrily anyway. It seems to be over and I leave the next day with the most horrible and crushing feeling of loss and sadness. I got too attached to a girl who i ended up pushing away by being an overly sensitive emotional idiot. Her apathy cuts through my affection for her and destroys me on the inside over and over again......

continued....

...continued:

However I now begin to accept that it was foolish of me to expect companionship or love in the first place. All the feelings of self hatred and worthlessness and shame and regret return. I now accept that she never felt nearly as strongly about me as i did for her. I try to move on in this new continent now.

In a few weeks she texts me. She wants to know how i am doing and talks affectionately. I melt but can not understand why she is showing any interest. I am afraid of being hurt and left alone like before and am convinced that she feels nothing for me so I ask her why she is bothering now. She says that she misses me but I am convinced she feels nothing but pity. She apologizes for being distant before and says that she just wanted space. She claims that she “does” care about me but was at fault by not being open about things with me before.

I feel extremely hurt and can’t bring myself to believe her. I can’t comprehend that there is any living soul in the world who would give half a fuck about me. Specially her. Every time she tries to talk to me and figure out how i am doing, I withdraw and am unable to open up to her because i feel that she doesn’t really care and is just a hostage in the relationship out of pity for me. I don’t tell her how terribly depressed and lonely i am here. I keep asking her why she doesn’t leave me instead of putting up with a loser like me and she gets more and more frustrated that I don’t attach any value to her attempts at making amends.

Eventually (september end), she stops putting in any effort and begins ignoring me again. she feels helpless and unable to change my mind. Doesn’t want to talk to me anymore because every time we talk, it ends in the same way: me not trusting her or opening up to her. Me not believing her at all when she tells me she cares about me. (It didn’t help that she’d ignore me when i would send her long texts about how much she had hurt me before)

As time goes on, our conversations become more and more sparse.
Last month, I decide to ask her what i am for her and she replies with “friend’s I’d like to believe”. Feeling crushed, I delete my account after thanking her for the good times and apologizing for not being able to make it work. I try to move on...


A few days back i text her again. Tell her how much i miss her and how much regret i feel for not trusting her before. She still doesn’t see me as anything more than a friend now. And I’m lost ...

you are cut for loneliness or you are not. If you cannot bear loneliness, like most people, you can learn to have pleasures by yourself by doing samatha mediation. Once you manage to be happy through the pleasures depending only on you, you will not fear loneliness, especially if you talk to other people who do samatha mediation.

OP here.
I know i fucked up. I know i should have trusted her and tried to fix things when she was opening up. I know she did try to make amends. But at that time i was at the lowest point in my entire life. Hurt, depressed, alone, alienated and feeling like a worthless piece of garbage. I couldn't believe that there was any way i could evoke any love or affection from anyone but my family.
I couldn't understand that she was ignoring me only because how difficult it was to talk to me during that phase. And that i never met her half way when she did try to make amends. By the time i had gotten over everything it was too late. She sees me as nothing more than a friend now.

I fucked everything up. I miss her to death. I miss my closest friends who're on the other side of the planet and who all go out and have fun together, go drinking together, go on trips together. While I am here, alone as a man who failed. failed with relationships. failed with the one girl with whom I had a chance of connecting with. the one girl who actually cared.

Over the past few years my yearning for companionship and close friendship has only gotten stronger but my actual situation has only grown further from it. I wonder if I can will myself to become apathetic to this need and sometimes i do go for extended periods in isolation. But I always break down...


(Sorry for the long and convoluted ramble. Sorry to all of you who expected a grand tragedy but got this ugly mess. For me it has been a grand tragedy.).

Bartleby

Try to not feel too bad, OP. Look at it this way:

You learned. You're learning. Now you won't fuck up in that regard when you meet another girl. And the same thing might have happened anyway - or do you think that things would've gone 100% perfect after forgiving her? No. That shit, your relationship, looks cyclical to me.

At least you're free now.

You're a chronic dweller aren't you? A silly addiction. Something I've noticed about thoughtful types like you is that you're often imprisoned by dramatisations of the past, almost willingly. It doesn't really mean that much.

Mind if I ask you what it is that you're studying?

>chronic dweller
most of my friends use this to describe me. they believe that I overthink things to hell. And that they can't fathom how someone like me be so constantly dissatisfied with everything. Some of them got sick of my constant dwelling which i understand from their perspective isn't too much fun to deal with. So now when i talk to them, I try to be cheerful and happy (so that i can add some value to the conversation for them).

But I can't shrug off the huge amount of guilt, shame, regret and overbearing pessimism that plagues me when I constantly keep dwelling on how things have turned out.

I'm studying computer science. Although i am infatuated with philosophy and try to take out time to read some literature from there. The stoics are somewhat helpful. But they offer only a temporary reprieve.

Yeah. This is one of the first serious relationships that i was a part of. I have learned a lot and become a better person. I just wish i hadn't lost so much during the process.

I feel somewhat free. But also somewhat scared. Scared that i might have ruined my only shot at connecting with someone. Ruined something so valuable.

The last time I had my heart broken (in high school), it took me 3 years to move on and stop missing her. God knows if I'll ever be able to become a free bird again.

This sounds like depression user. You should see a professional, it's what they're there for.

I didn't want it to come across that I think you're stupid by the way. Have you tried sublimating these habits into writings displaced from but related to your immediate self?

Computer science huh. Great! You can help me out. I've just recently taken a C++ module this semester which was stupid considering I know fuck all about it and have no patience for coding. What are some good resources/texts for learning Object Oriented programming?

I've never heard of a professional actually helping someone, to be honest. Usually it's just damaging advice coming from a place of pure ideology or pills.

It has helped me tremendously and I know of many other people who it has helped.

>girl problems

I feel bad for you, son.

Don't do it.

If you are older than 18, you need to kill yourself NOW because you are truly lost.

Not OP but why would you say that?

>I didn't want it to come across that I think you're stupid by the way
I know. i do feel that chronic dwelling is only detrimental to one's peace of mind so i wouldn't blame you even if you did think that.
PS: stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list/388282#388282

I have suspected this for the longest time. But didn't bother going to anyone because i wasn't sure if i could tell anyone "professional" about such personal things. Would have liked to tell someone close but don't really have anyone like that.

things are constantly a blur. My memory has been deteriorating more and more. Over the past 2 years there have been very few days when I haven't fantasized about dying. I used to be able to handle it earlier but now it's getting more and more difficult to bear. I feel like I've become emotionally crippled by the unbearable sadness that just doesn't go away. Some days it's just extremely difficult to not break down and cry uncontrollably.

I am older than 18. I have thought about it constantly over the past 2 years and would gladly do it if it weren't for my parents. I know it would break them and I just can't subject them to this. I must continue for them. They have raised me and have done quite a bit for me (toiled in their jobs to provide a good education for me). I owe it to them to live and provide for them once i'm done with my higher education.

With all due respect, you must be a crybaby. Real men fuck their lives up beyond the point where a professional can help them.

> i do feel that chronic dwelling is only detrimental to one's peace of mind

Like I said. Try harness that sensitivity into something. Thanks for the link.

On a semi-related note I've always thought that there's something about manga and anime that incites your kind of thinking.

I have tried writing somewhat. But i don't have any experience in this field. so what i write comes out to be extremely amateurish.

>I've always thought that there's something about manga and anime that incites ...
yeah, i do have a few manga/anime that are somewhat close to my heart because of how much they hit home. i appreciate some of them for how nuanced and well thought out their takes on life, relationships and people can be. and the perspective they sometimes offer and their ability to evoke emotion.

Why is everybody in this thread so intent in turning this board into /relationshipadv/? Is everyone under 25 here? Have you not lived this story before, or at least heard it? At least OP had the decency to ask for book recommendations first and to not believe his is a remarkable fate. Everybody else, stick to books.

OP, you are (still) far too healthy, well fed, supported, cared for, provided a purpose, for this not to hurt so much right now. It will fix itself, in a way, along with those other things. It will get worse probably, for a while, then it will be washed over by other winds, then it will...but you'll see. Why spoil it? Besides, I might be full of shit anyway. For most people it takes a lot of time and struggle to die and you'll get a lot of deja-vus by the time you get to what may prove to be halfway there.

As for books, there are so many. Hunger by Knut Hamsun comes to mind first. I haven't seen it mentioned and I think you might enjoy it. I hope you didn't mind my pessimistic preaching too much.

I did not want to make a post to whine. Or to lament about my failures. People asked so i told them.

I was mostly interested in book recommendations. Have read hunger by knut hamsun. It's a good book but not quite what i'm looking for.

>On a semi-related note I've always thought that there's something about manga and anime that incites your kind of thinking.
I think you've got the causality backwards

I'm not one for poems, but perhaps this one will cheer you up OP:

One Art Related Poem Content Details
BY ELIZABETH BISHOP

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.