Mikodite said:
Yes, it does look like you're going through insert-fingerquotes-THAT phase, if you know what I mean. The "I'm a misanthrope and people are disposable trash and I'm my own little island" phase.
We're humans. Humans are social creatures, as are all primates. The one difference we have from Bonobo chimps is that our methods of socialization are legion. If you're figuring that you'll be able to live out your life as a hermit, think again. Social contacts come in all shapes and sizes, especially nowadays with social networking taking so much space in our lives. You also have to consider that we have differing levels of social interaction.
I'm a quiet guy, and I can go for weeks on end without meaningful contacts with anyone. Still, at some point or another, I'm bound to want to talk to someone, to make some kind of connection, to at least start a discussion. My father's a social butterfly, in that he starts to feel like a meth addict missing his fix if he doesn't have one little soirée with friend and/or family every two weeks. The longer he puts off meeting people because of obligations or life giving him a bad set of cards for a few months, then we can be sure the end of that slump will be marked with him wanting to see EVERYONE in his circle of friends in quick succession.
To people like myself or my mother, whom you could consider as slightly feral, it's more than a little off-putting. Does that mean we consider people to be trash or that we don't value companionship? Of course not. You might think that every social encounter can only end in pain, right now, but if you keep that mindset, you'll deprive yourself of so much of what life has to offer.
Here's another example. I lost my dog, a year ago. While I was crushed, I took a different path from my parents. They'd never seen me be so devastated before, and they assumed I wouldn't want to live through something like this ever again. What they were missing is that I went through two weeks of intense emotional turmoil in exchange for TWELVE FRICKING YEARS of pure "A Boy and his Dog"-type bliss. Yes, owning a dog is an experience that will end in pain in one way or another - but as someone else said, the high road to that one gritty moment is filled with so much that needs to be experienced, so much that enriches your personal experience, that depriving yourself of that feels like a crime.
If you followed your own logic, you'd stay home, lock yourself up and never meet anyone ever again. You'd cut off any potential sense of loss and cull the less meaningful contacts, sure - but you'd miss out on a little thing called life.
As a great man of whom I ignore the name once said; it's the journey that matters, not the destination.
Oh - and it's spelled "Camaraderie".
