Loners

That you know you place your well-being high on your list of priorities but don’t see a pathway forward (yet) causing cognitive dissonance? Because that’s not necessarily self-loathing narcissism, although I can understand self-deprecating introspection projected as humor. Sometimes years of abrasive and unhelpful peers or family bring out the worst in us, it’s easy to tip over into what might be deemed immaturity or self-centeredness as a defense mechanism; but sometimes it’s not always you.

You do have the right to live a good life and have nice things and want to be wanted/appreciated. Just be cautious about which parts of yourself and your action-chains you label as wrong or bad. And don’t accept negative feedback automatically if it comes from your own thought streams or from immature/zealous/cranky/hangry peers. Not saying you’re free to do or say whatever at all times without consequence because karma will definitely kick your butt for that at some point unless you run in especially dark circles in which case law enforcement or (eventually) the entire body politic will kick your butt if it’s bad enough (case in point: Trump and cohorts for an extreme example), but I digress.

Good therapy will promote self-healing from old damage, self-appreciation without self-centeredness, and action plans to get out in the world and start finding people to share life and the things you enjoy with so that you can appreciate their company while they appreciate yours. And plenty of us here are also available to pitch in with all of that.

Also kick anyone to the curb pronto if they promote imbalanced advice or only look at your flaws.

I’d also add it’s hard to say for sure whether a list of your interests and theirs will capture the true essence of a feel-good relationship that will unfold naturally, so don’t be too religious about checking and confirming every preference you or someone you meet has. If it helps to look at it from a math perspective… remember that there can be multiple decimal points and dimensions to each integer or ‘list based line item’ (all math is symbolic abbreviation after all). As human beings with billions of neurons we’re naturally fairly wobbly, it takes a lot of effort to do the exact same thing the exact same way each time, so if you let any emotional glaciers shift a bit you’ll probably uncover something new and enjoyable with each stage you go through in life.