I've known people who complain about how they get too much attention from others while I've been invisible for my whole life. I know they possess qualities that make them desirable while I will never feel love or be able to love another. A lot of people do not seem to know what life is like when you're not desired. How your identity and sense of self is built around this. How can you love yourself if you've never been loved? They say that you can only be loved if you love yourself, to which I ask: Which came first for you? They don't have a ready answer, because they've never thought of it. They've never needed to.
A person who has been desired can face rejection because they have felt the spark before and know it can be rekindled. They have evidence, memories. They know what it's like to have someone want them, to be with them. Not out of quid quo pro, but because they are them. We have nothing. The absence has changed us to see the world as one we stand alone in until the end of days, or in a world separated from everyone else. Compliments feel like polite niceties, or ways to exploit you. The assumptions of tomorrow have changed: It's another day of being alone.
The absence gives no reason to become better, to build a future. It has made me want to take up as little space as possible while I wait to fade into the long dark. I am not trying to recover from a loss, I am trying to see a color I've never seen. To answer the question that causes so much sorrow. What does it feel like to be chosen? What does it feel like to know your existence matters to someone else in a way that is voluntary? They do not have to call you but they do. They don't have to think about you, but they do, and enjoy it. They don't have to care about you, but they do and relish every moment they spend with you.
Others are given experiences that reinforce the belief that they matter. They're noticed, remembered, and wanted, even if only briefly. These memories leave an impact. The lack of them destroys your self-esteem and confidence which prevents anyone from desiring you in the first place.
I've been told to build confidence... Confidence in what?
I've been told to love myself... Based on what evidence?
I've been told to put myself out there... To what end? To face dozens of more rejections?
When you've had a relationship you learned that you could be chosen. At my age I've stopped expecting it. Rejection is a rule that governs my life. I've learned that attraction isn't for someone like me. It's not even seeing others in relationships that causes me pain. It's the little things like seeing a cashier at a store smiling at the person in front of me, then when I walk up it immediately shifts to a frown and they become guarded. It makes me feel hideous, ugly. Like I should simply bury myself so the world doesn't have to see me, because they clearly don't want to.
I'd trade place with anybody who bemoans the attention they receive. That grass looks much greener than the forlorn isolation I have to deal with each day.
I'm sorry you too, have to go through the same experience.
