I am 19 years old, but that doesn’t mean I’m not much older. I seem to purposefully inflict agony and misery on myself every day, as if I have some innate need or desire to despise my own existence, which makes me feel much older than I should. It’s a character flaw that I try to suppress, for I know it’s an irrational and unsubstantiated feeling. However, through these fevered delusions of self-loathing, I have been able to come to a few conclusions.

1. I will never have "somebody". No, this isn’t one of those "nobody loves me" kind of deals. Every time I mention this undeniable fact to a friend, they always always always reply with "you’ll find someone eventually". Can you listen to what I’m saying?!? I just said that I won’t! Dumbshits, all of you!!!

::sigh::

No, what I mean by "I will never have ‘somebody’" is that it’s half character observation and half self-fulfilling prophecy. First off, I know me. You don’t. You don’t get to tell me what’s going to happen to me, as you don’t live my life and won’t be steering it’s course. Second, by saying that I will never have "somebody", I’m acknowledging that I will ruin (consciously or unconsciously) any possibility at a relationship with anyone I may or may not meet. It takes me a long, long time to get close to someone. Months. Years. I can’t comprehend "hitting it off" with anyone from the get-go, and people who can do that puzzle me. And they earn my envy. Perhaps any sort of self-worth I have is so infinitesimally small that it takes so long for other people to find it.

Don’t ask me why I do this... I know why, but I’m not about to tell you. There are many things you don’t know (and it doesn’t matter who you are... there’s more you don’t know than what you do know). I have to make sure that I arrange for everything to be revealed at the time of my demise.

2. I will never be "happy". My justification for that is quite simple: fear. Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of life, whatever. I suffer from that from time to time. However, worst of all is my fear of my friends. I can’t explain it or analyze it. But try living your life... no, just a single day... in abject fear of those you love the most. It’s really difficult, and rather annoying. What keeps me most from being happy is the desire to be close to people conflicting with the fear of being close to people. I look back and I can mention dozens of times that I’ve been "burned" (at least in my mind) and all this does is confirm my fear. Not that I place blame on anyone else... it’s hardly their fault, of course. It’s not their fault that things happened to turn out against my favor. On the other hand, that doesn’t stop the irrational part of my brain from trying to blame others... bad brain, bad!!

3. I will never get what I want. I want too much. Well, in a sense... there are some aspects of life where my wants are very few and far between (for example, despite all my jokings on the subject, I really have no interest in sex). Rather, I think I suffer from a syndrome that all artists do... I want to be noticed. I want people to look over at my artwork and say "Wow!!" (yet, strangely, I really feel uncomfortable when people do say "Wow!!"... maybe I do it just to woo Kat...). But even more so than my drawings, I want people to become amazed at my writings, my poetry, and, yes, even my acting (my head became so swollen every time Paula would take me aside and tell me how great I was). The problem arises when people say "Wow, you’re so great", yet it rings completely hollow. I can sense it, I think, when people are falsely praising me (it happens more often than I like to admit... so often, in fact, that I take some small comfort in suspecting that it’s not all as bad as I fear).

I imagine that I automatically "increase" my view of the praise/compliments/attention/etc. that other people get, and "decrease" my view of my own, and then compare the two and see myself getting far less attention from all quarters. I try not to compare myself to others, but it’s a very difficult thing to do (on the other hand, it’s pushed me to advance in my art far beyond what I’d have expected). Anyway, I derive happiness from knowing that I’ve had some sort of positive impact on people/things, but I never get to actually see the full impact I make!!

::sigh::

Is it me, or do I seem to be getting myself stuck in all these Catch-22/paradoxical situations?