They were never the problem, I was.

When I was young, I was a calm child. I loved wandering off on my own, sneaking into little places where I could create something out of nothing. I could spend hours entertaining myself, building imaginary worlds, inventing stories, and dreaming. I have been a dreamer for as long as I can remember; probably since I was four years old. Solitude never frightened me. In many ways, it was where I felt the safest.

As I grew into a teenager, my world became bigger. I met more people, made friends easily, and became surprisingly popular. I was outgoing, funny, and people naturally gravitated toward me. But beneath that version of myself was something unsettling that I couldn't explain. No matter who I met or how exciting someone seemed at first, I always ended up feeling lonely.

I was often the life of the party. I could make an entire room laugh without much effort. People enjoyed being around me, yet while they formed lasting friendships and meaningful connections with one another, I somehow remained on the outside looking in. It wasn't because I didn't have opportunities to get close to people. It was because I never allowed them to truly know me. I couldn't tell them about my life, the home I came from, or the secret I carried deep within myself. There was always a wall between who I was and the person everyone believed they knew.

My childhood was confusing. I was spoiled in some ways and abused in others. I was given things, yet deprived of emotional safety. Looking back, I think that's why I became such a dreamer. Imagination gave me a place where reality couldn't hurt me.

Now that I am an adult, not much has changed. I still feel lonely. I am still well-liked wherever I go. At work, people laugh at my jokes, enjoy my company, and naturally include me. But I still struggle to build genuine relationships. The strange thing is that other people are rarely the problem.

I have come to realize that I suffer from a kind of pathological loneliness. It isn't simply the absence of people around me; it's a way of experiencing people that keeps me emotionally isolated even when I am surrounded by them.

Whenever I meet someone, I don't see them as they are. Instead, my imagination quietly creates a version of them before I truly know them. I invent their personality, imagine the connection we could have, and fill in the blanks with my own hopes and fantasies. I become attached to that imagined person rather than the real one. Then, as reality slowly reveals itself, I feel disappointed. Not because they changed or deceived me, but because the person I had connected with never really existed. It was my own imagination that deceived me.

The same imagination that protected me as a child has become the very thing that keeps me lonely as an adult.

Relationships have always been the hardest part of my life. Many people have shown interest in me, yet I almost always push them away. Intimacy feels dangerous. Being emotionally exposed feels unbearable.

So I learned to wear masks. I hide my attraction. I hide my affection. I hide my fear. I hide my anxiety. Whenever I begin to feel vulnerable, I transform those feelings into humor. Every uncomfortable emotion becomes another joke, another laugh, another sarcastic comment. People love being around me because I make them feel comfortable. I lighten the atmosphere wherever I go. But almost no one realizes that the person making everyone else comfortable is deeply uncomfortable himself.

At the heart of it all is shame. I am ashamed of my emotions. I am terrified that if I show someone I love them, miss them, or simply care about them, they will laugh at me or see me as weak, needy, or pathetic. I fear becoming the butt of the joke. I fear losing my dignity simply because I allowed someone to know how I felt.

When I look back, I think I know where that shame began. As a child, whenever I showed affection or expressed my emotions, my mother often made me feel embarrassed for it. I still remember wanting to hug my aunts or simply express my love, only to hear her say, "7bes tesma7les fnas." Whenever I was anxious or afraid, my feelings were dismissed instead of comforted. My fears were minimized. My emotions were treated as something inappropriate rather than something that deserved understanding. I do understand my mom now and we are on good terms and I spoke to her about it and she appologized. she lost people, from family memebers to friends and that's only one reason.

Little by little, I learned that emotions were dangerous. That love should be hidden. That affection should be restrained. That vulnerability would only bring humiliation.

So I became someone who laughs instead of confesses. Someone who jokes instead of opening up. Someone who disappears emotionally long before anyone has the chance to reject him.

Some people think I am arrogant. Others think I am simply selective about who I let into my life. The truth is almost the opposite. I desperately want closeness, but I don't know how to let someone get close without feeling exposed.

Ironically, it has often been easier for me to hook up with complete strangers than to build intimacy with someone who genuinely wanted to know me. A stranger asks for nothing beyond the moment. There is no future to fear, no vulnerability to maintain, no emotional investment that could later be used against me. But with someone who could actually matter, every feeling suddenly feels dangerous.

The hardest part is that I understand all of this. I can trace the patterns back to where they began. I know why I think the way I do. I know why I hide, why I dream, why I imagine, and why I stay lonely.

But knowing the map has never been the same as finding the way home. Perhaps my greatest struggle has never been loneliness itself. Perhaps it has always been learning how to let another human being exist as they truly are; and allowing myself to exist beside them without fear.