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“I hope you fall in love with someone who never lets you fall asleep thinking you’re unwanted.”

— Unknown

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— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

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It makes me sad that most people around me are so unbelievably burnt out from work and life that they are just truly emotionally unavailable and don't even wanna use their energy for anything beside going out partying once a weekend

It's like watching friends who you've seen be silly and have deep talks work jobs to the point of stress where they are incoherent and respond to messages like legit 6 days later and not in a rude way but genuinely they don't have the mental capacity to do shit anymore

Working jobs and paying bills shouldn't take everything out of people to the extent it really does

Even when I'm off work and I had a shorter shift most of the time I truly have nothing left in the tank after the combo of emotions and physical labor

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No offence but I feel like some people got a little too comfortable with telling people to touch grass and swung all the way round to just straight up shaming anyone who might have a less active social life than them to feel better about themselves. “She should be at the club” was a really funny meme until people started acting like fucking middle school bullies towards people who don’t go out with their friends a lot. All those drinking/drugs/sex milestone polls were fun to engage with until it became a wierd circlejerk making fun of people who haven’t done those things before. People on twitter are once again dogpiling someone for wanting queer social spaces that don’t revolve around alcohol or loud music and telling them it’s their own fault for not having friends.

Like I get that nightclubs and sex have strong ties to queer culture and are often the first targets in the hellscape of respectability politics. It’s important we remember our roots and protect these spaces from conservative scrutiny. I mean that. They are important. But just on a surface level it seems like people are starting to see having an inactive social life as some kind of moral failing which…it’s not. I feel like an insane person for feeling like I have to say this on the fucking queer autism website but like. You aren’t inherently a bad person if you don’t have friends. You aren’t “falling behind” if you haven’t had your first kiss in your 20s or never done drugs. The real world isn’t a movie. And if you see someone who doesn’t go out much and instinctually think “wow what a terminally online loser. I bet their social life sucks because they’re a sheltered creep and not because of systemic barriers beyond their control” you need to have a long hard look at why you feel that way.

There are very real barriers that prevent isolated people from finding community and connection. Do you think you’re superior for being able to breach them? Time, money, sobriety, accessibility, none of those factors were a problem for you, so it shouldn’t be for them, right? Right?

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Lovers series #4

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This creates, of course, a vicious circle, in which the lonely person grows increasingly more isolated, suspicious and withdrawn. And because the hypervigilance hasn’t been consciously perceived, it’s by no means easy to recognise, let alone correct, the bias. What this means is that the lonelier a person gets, the less adept they become at navigating social currents. Loneliness grows around them, like mould or fur, a prophylactic that inhibits contact, no matter how badly contact is desired. Loneliness is accretive, extending and perpetuating itself. Once it becomes impacted, it is by no means easy to dislodge.

Olivia Laing, The Lonely City

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Every time one of my friends tell me how much they care about me, how important I am to them and how much they love me platonically, I feel like a part of me dies inside.

I'm so incredibly thankful for them, for their feelings and for the care they put into our friendship, and yet, it's an explicit reminder that they will never see me how I see them, that they will never want something else from this connection, because this is already the maximum it could reach for them: that's all they need from it. I'm happy for them.

I feel miserable.

I feel worthless, I feel unlovable, even though I know it's not true.

I feel like I'm wasting time and energy nurturing relationships that leave me constantly drained and so terribly lonely.

I won't resent my friends for rejecting me anymore, but it still doesn't fulfill me, my needs remain unmet, I remain frustrated and this whole predicament is so depressing.

Why can't people see me as a potential romantic partner?

Why is it that I'm always the best friend, but that's all I am?

How can I even get people to see me romantically, my friends even?

What am I supposed to do to change that?

I won't cut people off my life anymore, and being detached to distant from them won't change a thing - I do like my friend close to me anyways.

I don't know what to do, I wish these feelings didn't hurt so much...

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Why is hope prevalent & widespread among those at the frontlines of the struggle but often scarce among those at the peripheries who are shielded? I think it comes down to individualism and colonial values. Resistance movements give me hope. Across history, in the face of brutal systemic violence, people have always fought for freedom and the right to love— each other, the land, their diverse cultures, & ancestors. Communities have dismantled entire empires. It took generations of unyielding resistance. It took a lot of faith, conviction and belief in a free future. It took decades & often centuries of work but people freed themselves. They always have. What can we learn from them? Hope is not a feeling generated by an individual from within. Hope is a flame that is intentionally co-created in community that then permeates & passes through us all. Hope, happiness, joy, contentment, safety, meaning, purpose, motivation, creativity, etc are all things an individual cannot independently generate in isolation even if colonial logic convinces you otherwise. Hope is a fire that is tended to and kept alive by the collective efforts of many. Just like any life-giving, life-sustaining energy that circulates within an ecosystem, we depend on each other to have hope. Like survival, hope is a collective responsibility, not an individual burden. We have to play our role in seeking out community where such hope can be co-created. The struggle to forge community in itself is a journey with a million hopeful moments that can only exist alongside painful teaching moments. As long as we run from the struggle, hope will remain just as inaccessible.

another wonderful piece from Ayesha Khan!

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thinkin thoughts! this one’s called “niche market”

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i can't breathe when i think about it too much.

Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness / unknown / F. Scott Fitzgerald, Benediction / Taylor Swift, exile / @/free-my-mindd / Zhenya Katava & Neus Bermejo / unknown / Blythe Baird, If My Body Could Speak / C.C.Aurel / Florence + The Machine, I'm Not Calling You A Liar

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“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

― Jamie Anderson

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Grief is the only proof that I love and I love well. Love and grief are actually intertwined with each other and as "Akif Kichloo" once wrote, "the opposite of grief is not laughter or happiness or joy. It is love. It is love. It is love."

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i wish you a comforting love, a love that prevents you from drowning in pain.

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On the idea of love as seeing