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This post is loosely inspired by
Degrowther suprised me with the baby blues post because of how much I resonated with some of the things brought up.
When my sister had her kid, she and her "husband" immediately jumped on the "the only friends I have are other parents" bandwagon. Living with them for a few months after the baby was born, I believe I have a good outsiders perspective on it. So, why do parents tend to socialize more with other parents and less with single people?
"Friendship". Ha. I used to believe in friends. I used to believe in brothers and sisters from other mothers, people I could trust with my life. People who I could turn to if times got tough. Haha. It was a cute fantasy. One day I realized that all of my "friendships" were really parasitic relationships.
The same people always taking my time, attention, money, drugs, car rides, never made an effort to hangout and didn't lift a finger when I was at my lowest points in life and really needed a hand. Every "brother" I thought I could trust ghosted me once they got what they wanted or found a better source of what I was giving them.
That is what "Friendship" means to people. Symbiotically parasitising physical and emotional resources from eachother until your friendship has no more use and that person isn't worth your attention anymore since theres nothing to get out of it. That doesn't sound like friendship to me, but thats all i've ever known, and probably all you've ever known.
When I came to these unfortunate conclusions, I had to make a desicion. I could either keep living in my fantasy, bend the knee to the parasites, accept my need for any kind of social bonding is more important than self-respect. Pretend the parasites were my 'friends'. Or I could cut out the parasites and be truly alone. It was a hard choice to make, but looking back it was the best decision I ever made. The only one you need to be happy is yourself.
From this "Resource Economy" theory of friendship perspective Ive taken, we can theorize the "Why" of the matter. Single people have a set of physical/mental resources desired from other "friends" As mentioned, your time, money, possibly drugs, attention, physical attraction, validation, social networking, and free car rides, a free place to sleep. These are all things which determine how much a person wants to be your friend. When you have a child and take up the commitment, all of those once available resources instantly dry up for the most part. When the "friends" realize there is no more juice to squeeze out of the parent, they move onto the next schmuck.
Parents have an entirely different set of resources they want out of their symbiotic social relations. Children are a bitch to take care of. Changing diapers and feeding them and cleaning their messes is only the tip of the fucking iceburg. I may not be a parent but I did help raise the niece as a baby for a couple months while living under the same house. Its not rocket science to take care of a baby but it is a LOT of attention needed at pretty much all times. Your life effectively revolves around them at varying degrees for *years*. Its easy to want help.
To parents, nothing is more of a valuable resource than other parents. They bring something to the table normie single friends dont;
So far ive spoken of my experience with parents and some of my poor social experiences. Now lets change gears. I want to talk about my own interesting encounters with isolation. I am going to detail some of the more unfortunate experiences of isolation in my life. If you aren't into reading about sad personal stuff, skip this section.
From my birth, I was rejected by my parents. They never wanted anything to do with me and they verbally let me know The only reason I was born was to stop my dad from leaving my mom. My existance was their bindings, and an early age I felt it through their total apathy towards me. It was my sister they had real love for. As an adult I can forgive them for being human especially now that their old and alzheimered up. But I do not forget, and that particular mental scar runs deep.
As a toddler, I was rejected by the kids around me for being white in a predominantly black area. Constantly getting beaten and hurt by fellow toddlers and older teens alike. When I asked why a particular person who liked picking fights hated me, i was told something I remember to this day. "My daddy told me to hate you whites" Thats what racism boils down to, generational hatred being verbally passed on and using entire races of color as mental scapegoats to take your personal failings and fustrations out on. After a few years of being beaten by strangers for daring to be white and walking through the town, I learned and hide at home and the PS1/PS2. Thank god for escapism.
When I moved into a predominantly white area around middleschool, I was again rejected by the kids around me, this time for being fat. A childhood spent indoors playing videogames is not exactly good for the body. I remember having a shoebox arrive at my front door filled with dozens of pages of insulting drawings made by some neighbor girls, the same ones who threw rocks at me when we got off the bus stop.
And Finally I moved again in highschool. I was rejected for, you guessed it, being fat and totally socially inept. The bullying this time was mostly verbal, no stone throwing or boxes of child-hate art. Plus I managed to make one friend who got me into the stoner/drug culture.
These are some of the most painful experiences and realizations of my life. Even the sillier ones hurt like hell at the time and raized any chance of self-confidence in my early life. Most of my personal mental issues stem from issues with love and validation, both things I craved for a long time. Things I still find myself craving once in a blue moon.
The theme of my life is isolation. Rejected by everyone around me from family to peers for reasons largely out of my control. The loneliness tore at my mind, tore at my heart. Yet I gained something valuable from all that pain, that isolation. I gained independence most people never have.
Loneliness is a kind of hunger. The hunger for socialization, validation, shared experience, connection.
People in modern society are LONELY. It seems like everyone, everywhere, feels the isolation. They feel a hole in their hearts being torn at, they feel the hunger of loneliness and they dont understand *why* or how to fix it. The lie society tells you is that the void will go away if you acomplish X or have Y.
Relationships are like drugs, especially romantic/sexual ones. Insane highs, terrible withdrawls. Most people are addicted to relationships, whether they want to phrase it like that or not. They think the only possible way to lessen the pain of their loneliness is to have a friend group, fuck, have a romantic partner, have a family, or escape through entertainment. Yet when they do fuck, when they do have their "other half", when they do have a family, when they do surround themselves with 'friends', when they do escape through entertainment, the fleeting pleasure eventually goes away while the loneliness and isolation doesn't. Its still there. Most people are trapped in this addictive cycle till their deaths.
First off most people do not want to 'break the cycle' nor would I advise it for the average joe. Being an emotionally charged horny monkey is like half of what the human experience is all about. Throw away the "hook up, love and traumatize eachother, break up" aspect of life and it kills the fun.
. The traditional answer you get is the "let go of desires" "meditate" yada yada. Typical self help fortune cookie answers. Its all bullshit folks.
First off, get a pet. A dog or a cat can provide you a better social experience than an entire friend group.
The second thing is psychadellics. I think ive earned the status of resident hippy-stoner of the gemini community for how much I bring it up but seriously if you are in a bad spot in life magic mushrooms or LSD can literally be life-changing for the better. Orgasms got nothing on the feeling of pure universal love emminating from your very being and a wave of positive energies washing through your soul, its enough to blast the depression and self-pity out of anyone.
"B-bhut Smokey, what about bad trips?" Never had a 'bad trip' in my life like you hear DARE programs tell stories about. Its about how comfortable/safe you feel with the enviroment and people around. Not all trips are super fun time happy euphoric some are more serious and self-enlighening which can draw out your subconcious traumas.
You would be suprised at the amount of people who experienced sexual abuse by a family member or something similar as a kid and just kind of subconciously bury it for a decade until the symptoms of that trauma show up as anxiety and over/under attachment to romantic partners. Psychadellics offer the chance to confront those kinds of trauma at its root and deal with it so you can finally move on. Take that, therapist! Who needs ya?
Okay Im tired and this is getting too long as is. I hope this jumble of different thoughts acts as some creativity juice for you. Kinda went off the deep end towards the end didn't I? Oh well, Ill see you later!