December 29, 2002
1:10 am

I'm really bummed. I've been trying to find someone to hang out with for days, but I guess I'm unpopular this week. No one seems to want to go out. I don't think this situation would normally depress me so much but now my circumstances are different.

Now that I've graduated I seem to have nothing but time. My friends have lots of time now as well because it's Christmas vacation. However, school will start soon enough and I will have no one to talk to.

One of the lonliest times of my life was when I first moved into my own apartment. On one hand, I really enjoyed the freedom (and as soon as I get a real job I'll try to obtain that freedom again). On the other hand, I craved human contact. Every day I did the same thing; wake up, go to work, go to school, go home. My days blurred into nothingness.

I tried everything I could think of to get out of my rut. I tried to distract myself by renting videos, shopping, or cooking new dishes. I was always inviting people over, bribing them with food and free entertainment. Sometimes they would accept, most of the time they wouldn't. I'm sure they, like me, were victims of the busy life of a college student. However, that didn't stop me from taking every rejection personally. My social anxiety grew worse. Soon the only person I really talked to was my therapist, and I paid her to listen to me. I once heard someone say that the most dangerous thing in the world is solitary confinement. I now understand what they meant.

Those were dark times for me. I believe it was the grace of God that kept me sane until I finally had a social life. My situation could have been a lot worse than it was.

But now I'm deathly afraid history will repeat itself. Sometimes I wonder about my capacity to live in the "real world." I'm not concerned about finding a job or living on my own. It's the potential lack of human contact that really worries me. Will all my Saturday nights end like this, feeling sorry for myself and confiding in my computer screen? It took years for me to make a decent amount of friends in Kent. Can I survive doing it all again?