I’ve kind of the exact opposite problem.

Well, I’ve been ‘alone’ my entire life, and never really understood the fellow humans around me and this method of cruelty, deception, and drama we’ve become accustomed to treating ourselves and one another with.

Growing up, I’ve been an outcast and abused by my own family in a variety of ways, which made me mistrustful to begin with. I was also overweight, depressed, never smiled..that kinda thing. Taking up smoking when I was 17 didn’t help either.

In my early thirties, (I’m now 34) I got a job as an EMT, lost about thirty pounds, took up gym, got a haircut, started a hobby in calligraphy, quit smoking for the most part and wouldn’t you know it: Women started to straight up stare and smile at me. I wasn’t even looking at them when I catch it.

Please don’t confuse this with braggadocio: I spent the previous thirty years utterly alone and very few friends. I have quite the stark experience to compare it too. I do not claim to be attractive, or that I am everything that is man, or god’s gift to women. I am *very much* NOT. That’s exactly the problem, I don’t know how to react, what to say, how to move forward, et cetera. I become incredibly nervous, and my years of experience in hiding myself while in plain sight renders me mute an having an uninterested air in those scenarios.

One might think that makes them lose interest. Quite the opposite.

Within these two years of this very much new experience, I am not grateful for it. It added on to my lingering depression and self-loathing, and a general frustration towards it. A sort of inner voice yelling at them: “NOW?” In a way, being a man makes it worse because we’re ‘supposed’ to make the first move and be in charge and know what we’re doing. I am none of these things. I have a self-confidence that I did not possess before, but not in this area.

Then, finally as I meditated upon the situation I came to a simple realization. No one needs anyone else for their happiness. I know this on an intellectual level, but could never feel it, understand it wholly. I can’t base my happiness on something I’ve never had. On something that was simply never there in my life. An absence can exist, in the sense that there was something once there. But, if I am whole no matter what, than what was the source of this discontent? Fear? Anger? Projecting my issues onto these smiling strangers?

No.

Though a broken tree is misshapen in the eyes of others, it is perfect unto itself, for it is in the form it needs to be. I was angry with myself because I was not accepting the form I was. If there is no such thing as perfection; at least from a human position, than there is no such thing as imperfection. Which makes everything perfect as they are…..sorry, if that’s confusing.

Since then, I have found it easier to smile back and go about my business. Instead of turning a simple jaunt to a Starbucks into a game of social dodgeball, I have been a bit more at ease, and have found my tension reduce dramatically. I have no plans of making new friends, and go on dates, and have relationships with anyone, but…I’m also not planning not too as well. These mental fictions were what were driving me up the wall. My projections of what a simple smile was ‘supposed’ to mean. The anxiety of not being able to meet what I assumed were the expectations of others.

Perhaps if there is something about yourself that you are having difficulty accepting, this may be why. Or I have completely missed the central issue, and I do that. I can’t really see things in plain sight.

Good luck!