Emo fucking shit.

I met two people today. One I'd never even spoken to on the phone before, the other I had a history with.

The first experience, lasting barely an hour, made me feel like a fish on a hook. Even when I think I know the right thing to say to somebody, or what seems like it anyway, why can't I make it come out right? So much verbal communication with others is horrible. I come away from it feeling wounded, wondering if I am some sort of misanthrope. I certainly don't have a continually balanced relationship to people, that's for sure.

Tout le temps, toute seule... mais quelquefois, je me trouve toute seule.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't hurt physically. People seem to like me. I don't know for sure that they do; I have to believe and that's where it falls down. It's not as if the metal tip was bloody in my chest. Of course there was no deathly experience. Yet always, social interaction is... so much twisting. So much twisting into knots, as if you can reconfigure your own face and body into what the other person is attempting to reflect from their face and body.

The pathological desire to please. The hatred of the desire to appease. The knowledge of the 'rules' and the gnawing fear of contravening them. What will people think? What will people think? WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK?

My pride suffers. I need my family; I cannot reject them whatever they might have done to me. Yet part of me deeply resents the need for others, at times. The Libertarian has proved to be so astoundingly compatible with me that I'm starting to get over this in terms of romance. I have a couple of best friends who are usually there for me.

But deep down, right in the bowels of the fear, is the terrible knowledge that I don't matter. Nobody is indispensable, The Libertarian told me once. 'Hearts' colours change like leaves... Like leaves.' We were discussing an event I am unsure whether to attend or not, on account of the fact that I admire the people there. I don't hero-worship, but I always want to feel like talking to me is not a way to pass the time in between 'real' conversations with other people.

Those weren't his exact words, but that's what he meant. I know that it's true.

I perhaps ought to mention that one of the people I met today was my ex-partner. I tried to talk to him. It was a laboured experience, and I was filled with horror at the fact that I had tried so hard to make this person relate to me, who was so beyond my reach. I had a sudden flash of the future I once wanted. I would never, ever have been the person he was looking for.

Seeing him left me emotionally drained, as I'd fought some kind of battle. I had - I was trying to prove myself to him, I think. Still trying to undo the damage that I wasn't really even responsible for. Just friendship is dangerous though - I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

He said I made him feel callous and shallow. Or something. I wasn't totally certain of how I'd done that - we were talking about cynicism and political involvement and blah-de-blah. I was basically trying to argue for greater self-awareness for those who consider themselves thoughtful human beings. We looked around for food this evening, and I said 'I don't know why, but I feel like I might cry.' He said 'Why?' then laughed in a frightening, hollow way. I admired him so much, and I still do.

I feel like he could kill me - not in an actual, physical sense, but kill whatever it is that makes me want to keep going. When I was with him, I tried to take his grief and confusion and suck it out, like poison from a snake-bite. Simultaneously I was trying to break myself up, let the pieces of myself re-form into what he was looking for.

Or was the one the means to the other? My sister came to me, I held her and hugged her and talked at her. She cried in my arms, I told her we [the family] loved her. I think it worked. Why am I so rubbish at human interaction? I have been beset with terror for the last year or so that all my friends dread talking to me because all I talk about is TL. I know this is not true, and none of them would lie to me like that. Yet deep down, it is because I know that all I do talk about is TL and political stuff. Not because I am a boyfriend-obsessed hairbrain, but because I have no life. Lack of money - and fear - hold me back.

I don't want to be famous, or particularly rich, or successful. I wish I felt able to believe people. Doesn't help that many of the recent people I've met are journalists (ha ha). Even if a few people could say they loved me. I keep wondering, if I die suddenly, what will my family say? How quickly will they recover from my death?

Next time I meet somebody I like and admire, mayhap I should just hide. Or make like Saul Green in The Golden Notebook and stammer 'I - I, I, I, I'. I know I am paranoid, but I don't fit anywhere and I don't look right either. If I was pretty in some real way, it might help - but I know that is ridiculous because my sister is pretty and she is heartbroken.

Groups of people frighten me. I want to bolt. I feel like a sacrificial offering. I can never be sure that they won't choose to get rid of me, because they have no obligation to hang on - and I take so much, with my petty need to be loved all the time. Crude, crude, crude. Sometimes, I want them to put me out of my misery, morph into birds, take to their wings and tear me to shreds. Like bait on a hook.