Confidant in 2024

Hmm. When was the last time I had one? I honestly don’t know. Someone that I could tell anything to, hopes and fears and insecurities and ponderings, not just inside jokes or minor lamentations. Maybe five years? Maybe longer? I suppose a confidant for most people is their best friend, or friends. I have a lot of friends, but no best friends. Pretty sure that’s my fault, at least in most cases. I have a bad habit of putting effort where I shouldn’t, and not rewarding those who are the most earnest. Earnestness fades over time. So does effort.

It seemed easier when I was younger. Back when places like this were the most important to me. I needed a place to keep my secrets, to confide my fears and hopes. What secrets were important enough that a teenager needed to store them in a diary site? I can’t think of anything back then that would seem important now. Fears? Well, almost all of my fears have come true. Life in no way turned out how I hoped it would, hell, how I naively assumed that it would. Hopes? Well, I still have those. That’s honestly all that ever keeps me going. The thought that someday, something might change for the better. The notion of all of these blunders, regrets, and missed opportunities not being 100% in vain is still a solace. Maybe moreso now than back then. Hope is all I have, even as I become more pragmatic and expect less and less in my gradually advancing age. Fear has completely run my life, undoubtedly the biggest reason for my perpetual self-sabotage. Perhaps someday hope can take the wheel for a change.

Anyway, I think I need a confidant. I just bottle things up. At least back in the day, I’d spill my guts here(and by here, I mean TOD and OD, since this is more or less the spiritual successor), and I’d talk about it on instant messengers with the friends I’d gained from diary sites and message boards. On my birthday this year, one of those friends who I was close with back then wished me a happy birthday, and we talked briefly. And then he just stopped responding. Later, when it was his birthday, I reciprocated the message, and again received nothing. I get it. It had been so many years. It must be disappointing to realize someone is in the same place as they were ten or even fifteen years ago. I don’t feel inclined to reach out again. Maybe, someday, if I accomplish something, reach some of the aspirations I had back then, it would make sense to try to connect with him. Otherwise, we are strangers, held together only by a past that exists only in memory at this point, digitally disintegrated.

Last year, after I got laid off, I went down to Medford for a couple weeks, since there was nothing else to do but wait for the applications I’d filled out to be looked at. Through confusing happenstance, I was able to reconnect with someone I used to be really close with before losing touch for a few years. We picked up as we’d left things, and she started hanging out with the group again. Her house even became the default hangout for Magic events and I’d usually stay there when I visited. Perhaps the closest thing to a sister I’ve had, although, yeah, she is super attractive and I’m sure I’d hop to it if she were ever interested. Not that I’m foolish enough to give that a whirl. Anyway, now she is ignoring my calls and texts, seemingly for no reason. There’s always the thought that maybe something happened, but then I see her instantly reacting to posts she’s tagged in on the group Discord, and it’s like, no, you’re not dead, you’re just an asshole. It bothers me, I suppose because it’s happened so many times before, often with a romantic interest. It’s just so weird in this day and age to ignore someone, but be active on social media, which is easily visible, or at least I assume. Discord is all I use regularly now so I don’t know what it’s like elsewhere these days. I suppose in these situations I could call the person out for ignoring me, but what point is there? If you know someone is glued to their phone, why expend more attention for them not responding to you? If they wanted to talk to you, they would. You may not know the reason, but surely there is one. My reaction at this point is just to disengage emotionally. I don’t want revenge for my scorn, or even a reasonable explanation I suppose. I just want to move on.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is I thought that person could be my confidant, but I was wrong. I can’t think of a single person in my life right now who could be. I can also recognize that my trust issues are severe enough that even if I could, I wouldn’t want to try to rely on them to that degree. Not when people can turn their back on you in a moment. I’ve even seen that moment before in my own life. It was weird, and I still don’t understand it, but I knew then that things were over with that particular friend. Maybe that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. So be it, I figure, people can do whatever they want. I’m owed no explanation, ever. People will follow their desires, regardless of loyalties. Should someone let you know something like that? Probably. “Should” doesn’t exist, though, at least in terms of tenets or principles. It’s just a word, just a theory. I want someone I can rely on, and I don’t have that currently. I’ve had it before, and discarded it, or fucked it up, but that doesn’t change my wants and desires. Whether I deserve it or not, I desire it. Thus, I’m back to blather into the void, for anyone, or no one. I don’t know if it will help, but it sure can’t hurt. I use this username elsewhere, but I am not exactly worried if someone finds this. It’s not like back in high school where it was a source of drama at the time. Who is looking for my secrets? Who even considers me outside of group hangouts? I’m a nondescript, milquetoast, failure of a person. Nothing unique to see here.

So…what do I want?

Permanence. I want something reliable, as close to eternal as I can get in my lifetime. It could be physical, or tangible. Created by others, or by myself. As stated, I can’t trust someone else to make it for me or bring it to me. So, I need to do it myself. At this point, that’s all I want. I’m not sure what that is. I still want to do stuff with music or wrestling, but I never have. I still feel so lost, and don’t know where to start. Although, lately, working out or practicing bass are mostly all that make me feel good, or at least good about myself. It used to be hanging out with friends, and trying to bring people together, but…what’s the point? Dissolution feels so inevitable. I can’t even hang my hat on any sort of legacy of bringing people together, because they don’t stay that way. I do want to start streaming again soon. We had a house stream a while ago, but it fell apart. I always wanted it to be a group thing, and they apparently saw it as my thing that they were helping out with. Again, I cannot rely on others. I don’t really have anything unique to offer, other than a non-fleshed out gimmick. Still, I need to feel like I am progressing toward something. Anything. ANYTHING. I feel so static and unchanging, in a miserable stasis while I watch the world pass me by. Even if it amounts to very little, I just need to try. Even being consistent with something that I don’t have to do for survival(work, sleep, eat) without getting depressed and losing energy would be awesome.