In what surely will remain the largest surprise of the year, I confess I’m not great with people. In any aspect, really. I can’t keep friends, or lovers, or business relationships afloat. To be fair, it’s mostly mutual in a lot of cases, but there’s some very significant instances, where the abandonment feels incredibly one-sided. But that’s not the point of this article. The point here is to dissect my own personal failings with people, to analyze where I tend to go wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

Since the beginning, I’ve never been that much of a “people person”. I stick to myself, I’m shy and introverted and I usually don’t say much. There’s an often discredited stereotype that quiet people are arrogant, that they think they’re better than everybody else. I can’t speak for my fellow quiet people, but I don’t speak for mainly three reasons: I have nothing to say, I’m too frustrated with the situation to willingly give up any of my thoughts or I’m afraid if I say something, I’ll only make the situation worse.

But, somehow, this aspect of who I am has never led to the crumbling of relationships that has so often characterized my experiences. It’s more or less when I do decide to speak, when I decide to take action, that I ruin things. Now, the question with all this is, is it really entirely my fault? I’d like to think no, but I’ve never had anyone else come to me, hat in hand, to apologize or make amends. That piece usually falls to me, for whatever reason.

For those who know me, my love life is a train wreck. It’s where I usually screw things up beyond repair with that person. It’s a near constant cycle of infatuation, brief speaking engagements, rejection and invariable heartache. To most, it seems that I purposefully choose people who will never return the feelings, but believe me when I say you don’t ever get shot in the chest on purpose. I don’t choose unrequited love, folks. It more or less chooses me.

And the same principle applies to my platonic friends. I am left behind, ignored, and abandoned by people I consider friends, dear friends, frequently. Of course, this is a natural part of life. Friends leave. But I can’t adequately explain why, really, the in between of making friends and losing them feels, I don't know, empty. Why I never get the text first, why I’m typically never invited on outings. Why I’m never considered. Perhaps I’m far too emotional about this to be able to write objectively, but I’ve been feeling this way for years.

Which has led me to the same conclusion time and time again. Some are meant to be alone. And I don’t mean for a time. For a month, or for a year. I mean, intrinsically, eternally alone. This isn't to say lonely, but alone nonetheless. Because I have tried to maintain relationships, and I have failed. Those involved have failed me. We fall apart and never come back together.

This is not an essay about self-pity. It is not an essay damning people who have left me behind. It is the most reasonable conclusion I have managed to reach after detailing these events for years. After all, I got a thirty-five-year-old pulling the strings up in my brain.

I wrote an article way back when about being a misfit. About not really belonging anywhere while still not being broken. I still believe that. I’m a misfit, and there are times when I’m proud of it. I do better alone. The loneliness, the hurt, that doesn’t happen when I’m off by myself. It is only when I leave Walden Pond and return to the connections I have with people do I feel useless and alone.

Perhaps this essay will strike some as unnecessarily rude or passive aggressive. Or maybe it will seem I wrote it without warrant. Maybe the folks who have hurt me will never read this. Maybe they don't think they hurt me. I don’t know. Maybe I'm too sensitive. I don't know. Maybe this is all in my head. I don’t know.

I am to blame to for a lot of what goes wrong in my relationships, I will say that. I'm erratic, and frustrating, and confusing, and off in my own world a lot. I don’t say the right things and I’m not that interesting of a person. I’m a lot of work, probably too much, and there’s something to be said for dropping dead weight.

Maybe I’m just that. Dead weight you start thinking is light enough to carry before realizing how insane it is to keep on doing it. It’s not worth it. As much as I’d like to say that I am worth the trouble, I can’t. I don’t have a grip on what makes me valuable yet.

Maybe when I do, I’ll be able to keep people around. Until then, who knows. But for the people who have dealt with me as long as you did, thank you. At least you tried.