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- This is long, sorry. -
I prefer to spend my time alone - on a day off I'll walk through a secluded trail/woods the entire day; even the days that I work I spend, on average, 3 hours indoors (aside from sleeping). I don't watch TV in living rooms; when I am watching something, it's youtube in my room.
I have social skills. I was voted Jr. Prom King, worked as a barista, was President/PledgeMaster in my fraternity, and worked for WDW. I've always had friends and I think im generally pretty social in social settings - I certainly get plenty of women's numbers and people buy me drinks at bars. I don't think I'm "introverted", I don't really buy the intro-extro/social-types stuff. Maybe I just don't know enough about it though, I've only ever really heard some base-level stuff from astrology-types explaining it to me.
Regardless, what isn't really making sense to me is that I feel like everyone else I run into "needs" me to socially interact and they take me doing my own thing as some sorta insult. I don't get it, but I've had multiple fights with roomies over "my attitude" and when I ask them what I did wrong, it literally boils down to "you have a problem with me because you dont hang out with me".
Heres some instances:
Apartment 1:
I was living in an apartment with 5 other guys; it was a college-program for Disney, so we were all young (21-22, one of us was 28) and we all worked for various departments/parks. I would get up around 5am, go work out, come back, shower, get breakfast, and prep my dinner for the next few days (crock pot stews). By 8am I'd be out the door and at work till roughly 5pm. I'd come home, have dinner, shower, change, have a glass of wine, and leave by 6:30-7pm. I'd just walk around, nothing particular usually unless I was going out on a date, until around 9:30pm. I'd come back home and hit the hay.
Every Saturday morning I'd make scones or cinnamon rolls with a couple different jams/butters from scratch. Every Sunday I'd make a roast dinner of some sort, sometimes a lasagna, shepard's pie, or ratatouille. This was for the apartment - I'd leave a note on the scones (most of the time nobody was up by the time they were done), whereas I'd set the table for everyone on Sunday.
And no, I didn't leave a mess or dishes - I don't like dirty dishes in the sink because it gets in the way of cooking so I ALWAYS do all the dishes (including anyone else's) during/immediately after cooking. Always. The food didn't suck either, I was part of the culinary program down there.
I wasn't dirty, I followed our agreed upon cleaning schedule so our apartment was always clean, and I wasn't messy - I only owned a bed set, a luggage trunk of clothing under 50lbs, toiletries/hygiene stuff, a knife set, and my phone. I had ZERO personal effects/"toys" of any kind - no game systems, no paraphenalia, no bayblades or ALF Pogs, not even a laptop. I arrived there via plane and everything I brought came with me in that mid-sized luggage bag and a travel bag; the other guys even laughed how my "moving in" took 30 seconds.
I'm bringing all this shit up because I seriously don't get what was "wrong" with me as a roomie. I was out the door before anyone else was awake, I was back in before anyone went to bed, I cleaned, I cooked, I never left a mess - FFS, I bought scented candles for the damn place. Yet roughly 2 months into me being there, the guys started asking where I was going at night practically every night; reminding me "you know, you can hang out. You can use the Xbox to play CoD. You can chill out to music. You can do XYZ." I'd tell them, "OK, thanks. I might do that." but I never did, I'd do my own thing; go walk, go on a date, etc. Eventually they scheduled a "Family Meeting" with me where they confronted me about "my depression issues". I told them I wasn't depressed, which quickly got hostile and turned into them basically saying, "Nobody 'just walks' for hours on end, something is wrong!" I told them I just enjoy my alone time and that I go out with chicks too. They then accused me of having a problem with one of the roomies, which divulged into them calling me an asshole, calling me two-faced, calling me all sorts of shit. I literally hadn't even SEEN 2 of the 5 roomies in like 3 weeks at that point. After a couple more months, one of the roommates moved out because "he couldn't handle my hostility", so we got another guy in who was pretty cool - but by then I was getting ready to leave as well, so IDK if that guy would've eventually keyed in on my meta-moves of "being hostile by not being there". The dude who moved out hit me up like 2 yrs later on FB to invite me to his wedding because "I was a great friend". I congratulated him, but told him I couldn't make it.
Girlfriend 1:
While in Disney I started seeing this girl, 20, fit, and into Lolita Fashion (which I thought was kinda weird but kinda cool/hot, so yknow, whatever.) She asked me out to the parks and then the movies and I said yes. We had a pretty good night, but for one; she kept insisting it wasn't a date and we were just friends, and for another; she kept asking me "are you having a good time?". I kept telling her I was, but she kept bringing up "OK, I just thought you might not like me/I was boring you." I kept assuring her I was having a great time and she wasn't boring me; I would even tease her a bit, saying something like, "You're not boring me, but I wish I could ask get to know you better...Too bad we're not on a date, huh?" After spending the day/night together, we parted ways - I kissed her goodnight and told her I had a great time and hope to have a 2nd "not date" that weekend with her. While riding the bus back to the apartment I got a text from her basically saying, "Hey I had a great time with you, I'm sorry I wasn't more interesting I was just really nervous. Please don't be mad at me."
I was just thinking, "Dafuq?", but just told her, "im not mad, I had a wonderful time! I'll see you tomorrow after work." We continued to date for roughly 3 more months, all the while...EVERY.SINGLE.TIME she was utterly convinced I was bored or mad at her, she even cried in the middle of a fucking mall while we were shopping; we stopped at a jewelry store and I asked to see one of the rings from the clerk, "Could I see how it looks on my girlfriend's hand?" that's when my GF started to cry, because "You're pretending to want to be here." I had actually SPECIFICALLY said, "hey, let's check out that jewelry store!" because I wanted to know her ring size, because I, a young idiot, was going to get an engagement ring.
Fast forward roughly 2 months; I proposed - she said "no" because, "I feel like I don't even know you."
Girlfriend 2:
A few years later I was working at Starbucks with a girl; 26, going for her PhD. We'd hit on eachother and graze up on one-another while passing, that sorta stuff, for almost a year. I put in my 2-weeks after getting a decent job somewhere else and she immediately texted me (she didn't have my number, she got it from a fellow co-worker), and asked me out. I told her, "honestly, I like you but I just don't know if a relationship is a good idea right now - there's alot up in the air." but she was persistant; she asked me out 3 more times, saying, "I really think we'd get along. I want to see if this could go somewhere." So I did and we dated for 2yrs. 2yrs of on-again, off-again, because everytime we'd get together, she'd accuse me of being disinterested, being upset, or being distracted. I knew more about that fucking woman's life than her psychologist - distracted was the last fucking word that fit. For our first Christmas, I wove her a necklace out of silver wire with gemstone I had mined. She didn't wear it once when we were together; at least I thought. In actuality, she wore it every day to work and would hold it when things got stressful for her, but she accidentally broke the jumper ring (the ring part on the back of the necklace where the hook or clasp would latch to) and she was afraid to tell me because, she "didn't want me mad at her". I asked her, "when have I ever gotten angry at you, or even raised my voice?" she said I never did. So I asked, "then why would you think I'd be mad at you?" she said, "because you're always short with me when we text and you never explain to me what you're doing. You always just say, 'walking around', or 'sitting by the river', or whatever." I told her that IS what I was doing, but by that point she just dismissed me as, "Not opening up to her" and because of that, she "didn't feel an emotional connection." And yes, of course, I had already gotten a ring.
Apartment 2:
After a bad breakup, I moved in with a buddy of mine. It was just for a little while until I got my own place squared away, but he opened up his place to me for as long as I'd like and I, in return, would pay him $500/mo as a "rent", of sorts. He actually wanted me to move in, but understood if I wanted my own place. The town had nice, secluded trails and clean air - I had just left a major city so I was excited to be back in a quieter place. I had also left my job for a more lucrative and less time-exhaustive job, so I had time to myself in a way I hadn't experienced in awhile - so I was outside in the woods or on walk-paths all day long. My buddy was an "Outdoorsman" himself, so I knew he'd get it. 2 weeks in, he asks to talk to me. He says, "I get up for work, you're not here. I come home, you're not here. Are you alright? Are you like, living in your car or something?" I tell him I'm fine, "No man, I'm just enjoying the woods - it's been forever since I've gotten to spend time out in the wild." So he says, "Yeah, but don't you cook and eat? I've never seen you make any food." I explain to him I cook in the morning, sometimes the evening. I pack a lunchpail and I wash any dishes I make. He then says, "Well, there's dirty dishes in the sink and you haven't taken the garbage out." I say, "Oh, I didn't know you wanted me to take out the trash. And those are your dishes - you just brought them down from your room." to which he replied, "I shouldn't have to TELL you, you're living under my roof. I don't want your money and you're welcome to stay for the rest of the month, but then you've got to go." For the next 2 weeks he "sat me down" 3 more times to discuss my "obvious depression" and "suicidal thoughts" because, again, "there's no way someone spends all day long outside". When I left he called me human garbage and told me to go F myself. I hadn't seen him that entire week, but I did make him chocolate chip muffins that thursday.
So yeah, I feel like everyone around me is insane. I like spending time with myself. I don't generally veg out in front of Netflix or CoD for 9 hours. I don't raise my voice at people or yell. At any given moment, I'm most likely to be "meh, yeah, I'm good.", which (forgive me for my ignorance) is a pretty average emotional state, AKA "where you should be on average." If you live with me, you might as well live with an ocassional UberEats - because waking up to breakfast is pretty much the only sign that I still live with you that you're gonna get. I feel like I'm insane because EVERYONE seems to assume I have issues - yet I seem to be the only person who doesn't have Vitamin D deficiency and sore eyes from staring at a TV screen. I keep getting told I'm depressed, yet I've never once even considered being on any "mind numbing" product of any form: SSRIs, Shrooms, Weed, anything. And yes, I have done drugs. No, I haven't found something profound from them - I didn't/don't "need" them to deal with my anxiety.
Am I based or some shit and all these people just can't handle my base-ness? Like, seriously, WTF? Do I really need to waste 2-4hrs every couple nights, sitting zombified in front of the TV while I ocassionally concur that Marvel is, "like, the most amazeballs thing I've since EpicMealTime." Because I REALLY don't want to do that, but I also am getting REALLY sick of people flipping a hate-switch on in their brains.
TL;DR: Dude likes spending time alone, specifically, alone walking/in the woods. Everyone around him keeps telling him he's got depression - yet he's the only one happy. Everyone keeps yelling at him that he has anger problems. GFs ask HIM out, then break up with him because they think HE is bored of THEM. Also, the Dude likes baking scones.
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