I’m pretty much miserable and I have no right to be...

...and I feel trapped because I know I'm not the only one, so reaching out feels selfish.

I have no friends, I've been single most of my life, my family holds me at arm's length, and sometimes I feel my debt to them is the only thing keeping me around. All my therapist seems to do is tell me I'm great and that I'm too smart for everyone which is TOTAL bullshit but he's clearly lonely too (or so he wants me to think). But my job is A+ compared to most people on the planet - so I have no right to be sad, right? Like, it's almost disgusting. And sure I get it, money =/= happiness, but I've never really felt like I had a choice.

I've tried a lot of tactics, I'm trying to be a better active listener, I try to sound less up my own ass, I try to be clearer and act happy, I try to get better at drinking and narcotics and just suck it up and go to parties even though I know I'll only wind up in the corner because it's never clear that anyone actually wants to talk through all the fake bullshit and the posturing, or that I actually deserve to be there... uh, rambling, but that all actively takes energy, I know it sounds pretentious but it's like walking uphill, it's a lot to juggle and it's exhausting. And then at the end of the day these people aren't friends with _me_, just some half-baked synthesized construct of what I consider to be "the friendliest man" because despite how hard I try to make these be genuine changes in myself they clearly aren't.

And it's never _enough_, you know? Lonliness isn't some checkbox I can just write off because I went out for a drink that one time. I have this "lonliness toolkit" that I've built up over the decades that has gotten me this far but I'm reaching for it more and more as the people I did know leave my life and these tools are _weird_ and, you know they're really alienating for people, but I'm afraid if I drop these tools I won't make it.

I guess tl:dr; just... how do YOU connect with people? And I don't just mean for a chit chat, I mean, was it a moment, did you know right away, did it take work? I just don't understand how people manage to *actually* get through to one another without hurting each other or scaring one other away. That's always what seems to happen.