Loneliness

There are some days when I feel so alone it almost suffocates me. The emptiness in my house, my bed, my chest... I know I’m the reason my life looks like this. I know it’s my fears and choices that have led to this loneliness—but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

Most days, I relish the solitude. The silence gives me space to exist within the chaos of my mind, without fear of interruption. My imagination runs wild with dreams of what my life could look like—a week from now, a month, a year. But eventually, the dreams fade, reality knocks at the door, and the coldness of loneliness seeps back in.

I think the fear of being with someone has always been with me. Even as a child, when I dreamt of growing up, getting married to the love of my life, and starting a family, there was always this shadow of fear. I've always gone back and forth between craving a deep connection and being terrified of opening myself up beyond friendship. My girlfriends make emotional intimacy seem effortless, but the idea of sharing those same parts of myself with a man—something I deeply long for—absolutely terrifies me.

There’s something haunting about the thought of dying alone. But somehow, letting a man close enough to chase that loneliness away is even more frightening. The idea of baring every part of myself to someone who has no obligation to stay makes me feel sick. How do all these couples around me make it look so easy? Why does it feel like my curse to be so tangled in my own mind that the idea of not being alone is scarier than the idea of always being alone?

They say, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” and maybe that’s what keeps me stuck in this prison of solitude—the fear that what’s out there might be worse than what I already know. So instead of healing or letting go of that fear, I create rules and lists. Rules to keep myself safe. Lists of all the reasons no man would stay once he truly knew me.

1. I don’t have delicate hands. Mine are fat, stubby—man hands. If I had slender, graceful fingers, maybe I’d be more attractive, and someone might actually want to hold them.
2. They’re always clammy too. Gross. My parents never wanted to hold my hand because of it. So why would a man?
3. I have scars. Some from surgeries for my endometriosis. Some from stretch marks after gaining and losing 30 kilos in 30 months due to medication. One on my jaw from a growth removal in childhood. And too many to count from when I used to self-harm—on my thighs, my stomach, my breasts.
4. And my breasts… God. Gaining weight gave me big boobs—the one silver lining. But losing that weight again? Now they’re saggy and sad. They went from being something I loved about myself to one of my biggest insecurities.
5. I’m infertile. Well, not technically. But at 24, my blood work showed my egg count was in the bottom 0.5 percentile. That basically means there’s a 99.5% chance I won’t be able to have kids.
6. My mouth is uneven. Watching videos of myself talk makes me cringe. It’s all I can focus on.
7. I can’t sing. And let’s be real—people who can sing are automatically about ten times hotter.
8. I come from a dysfunctional family. I don’t talk to my mother. My brother’s a narcissist I only speak to when I have to. My sister hasn’t spoken to me since 2019. My dad… well, he’s actually great.
9. Because of my dad, though, my standards are high. He’s looked after me so well—especially when my health got worse. So now, no man feels like he could possibly measure up to how I’ve been treated by him.
10. I’m not fit. I still need to lose at least 10 kilos to even be slightly attractive physically. So there’s no point trying to meet someone right now anyway.
11. I was molested as a baby—before I could even walk, while I was still in nappies. Physical intimacy terrifies me. The idea of sex makes me feel physically ill and gives me panic attacks. I wish I were exaggerating. But I’ve had full-blown panic attacks over the thought of needing to have sex if I ever want to have children someday.
12. I’m not the pretty friend. And guys want pretty girls.

So even though I would love nothing more than to not be lonely anymore, the truth is—there’s no chance this side of hell, that any man would ever be interested in me.