attention

i am constantly going back and forth between needing attention and telling myself that i'm too needy. this is why i'm purging myself of social apps; it's not healthy relying on likes and comments to tell myself my self-worth.

i feel like i am slowly forgetting how to be content with myself, like i need people to ask if i'm doing okay, or tell me random things they find, just so i know i exist or that i matter to some people. this is not healthy too, which is why the more i yearn for it, the worse my mental health gets, because as i go longer being socially isolated, the more my mind tells me that perhaps, i don't play any part in life, and therefore don't matter, so people don't seek me out to talk nor to do stuff together.

the more i isolate myself, the more i am aware how isolated i am, the more i realize that people don't need me in their lives, the more i want to remove myself form my already depleted social network. i am never sure of whether my friends are really my friends, or am i just a convenient acquaintance. people say, true friends can go for months without talking to each other and still feel connected. i call that bullshit. you can only do that when you have too many friends to keep count. i don't have a lot, so the interactions i get with the few friends i have matters to me. at least once a week, or every other week i'd ask myself if i should talk to them, ask how they're doing, share videos or articles with them. i just stop myself from actually doing that because i noticed that sometimes i annoyed them. you can tell by the lukewarm reception that you're not welcomed. so i refrain myself from doing that.

i'm very needy of a person. i don't have much self-esteem, so it makes me happy whenever i do well, and get complimented for that. it's quite pathetic when you think about it: it's not enough that i do well enough for myself, but i need public acknowledgement that i'm good. which is probably why i like learning and i like assessments and tests. because i can physically judge where i am in a pool of people. it's pathetic, but that's me. i guess even when non-confrontational, one can still be competitive, except i don't really want to win, i just want to know that i belonged: to a scale, to a group, to a category, anything but alone.

this pandemic has taught me that i need social interaction, but it hasn't taught me how to do it well, and how not to overdo it. i want friends to find me and talk to me, i want my partner to give more attention to me, because aren't we all stuck at home? all those times wasted on the road, waiting in-line, or spent watching movies in the cinema, shopping, suddenly disappeared. we now have a surplus of hours in our days. yet, i rather have those times back in my life, and be happy by myself, than have so much time in a day wondering if i should reach out to people for some chit-chat, then decide not to because i have nothing but sadness in my mind, and that's not a very good mentality to go into a conversation. i don't want to be a drag, that'll only give them more reasons to stay away from me.