I Feel That My Life Lacks Excitement. What Do I Do?
April 9, 2013 3:34 PM Subscribe
I’m a 19 year old gay male nearing the end of my second semester in college and I feel that I’m a fairly boring person. What can I do to improve my life? Just a forewarning, this will be more of a rant than a question, but I just felt the need to post it here.
For the majority of my life I’ve kept my distance between people. I do not hang out with other people as much as the average person. Oddly enough, right now I don’t feel too depressed about not being around people. I actually seem fairly content with being alone. Either way, I still feel obligated to have stronger relationships with people. I think that’s the biggest problem I have. I don’t have very strong relationships with other people. One reason why I’m like this could be because I don’t know how to express myself well. I tend to be very reserved and keep my thoughts in my head. Very rarely do I express myself 100%. I’m often held back by the fear of being judged by others and possibly being hurt for voicing my opinion. Even though I know it’s a good idea to find out what people like and don’t like about my ideas, I’m too scared to hear people say I’m wrong for some reason.
I don’t think I know how to love others very well. I mean, I already have a pretty crappy relationship with my family members. We barely express ourselves to each other. This really worries me because I feel like I won’t be able to develop a romantic relationship with anyone (and I say anyone because I still want to give myself the opportunity to develop a romantic relationship with a woman). Every time I daydream about having a boyfriend I’m usually surrounded by many other friends and having a good time, but when I jump back to reality that isn’t so. I do hang out with friends and I do have friends that I keep in contact with, but I don’t do it nearly as frequently as a sociable person.
It may be because I don’t often have motivation to do anything. I don’t feel excited as often as I did as a kid. I mean, I often just shrug off bad grades I get in school or just shrug off bad incidents that happen to me. Some guy bumped into the rear of my car and dented it some weeks ago because I didn’t notice the lane merging, and honestly, I didn’t give a shit at the time. I’m glad my brother was there with me to tell me to stop and talk to the guy or else I probably would’ve just driven off. I feel like I’ve lost a lot of the passion to live since I was a kid. I don’t know why. I’ve never experienced any serious romantic intentions from another person in my life, and for some reason it seems unlikely that I’ll experience that any time soon.
One thing that has been really bothering me lately is how many people, including some of my friends, have expressed how they either had sex, kissed, or just dated people while in high school. I remember my high school experience being very reserved. I only met a few people and barely hung out with them, and I didn’t develop any strong relationship with them. Hell, I’m pretty sure all my life I haven’t had one person I could consider my “best friend.” I’ve just only “liked” everyone I’ve been around with. I love talking and being with people. I really do. By the way, I am sexually attracted to people, I mean, that’s how I figured out that I’m gay, but I just feel like my romantic attraction is lacking. Honestly, I have no idea how strong my romantic attraction is since I’ve never been in a romantic relationship. I'd really like to have sex with someone, but I feel obliged to learn how to love first.
I guess a problem could be that I never allowed people to become my friends as a kid. I was often afraid of almost everyone in my grade school classes because I genuinely thought they all hated me for whatever reason. I don’t know why I thought this but it somehow seemed logical that they would hate me for my looks, the way I acted, etc. I mean, I was mistreated by some classmates growing up, but that completely changed as I entered High School, and even then I did not want to meet people. I’ve been trying to make myself less reserved since I’ve entered college, but I think even now I haven’t done all that much. I’ve only made a few friends over the past semester when I could’ve made so much more. There’s a lot of people that I knew could’ve made good friends but I didn’t do anything because of my tendency to distance myself. I know the best thing for me to do is just to go out and talk to people without any fear, but like I said, I don’t have much motivation to do anything anymore.
I do have goals by the way. One of my biggest goals is to start working on documentaries on topics that aren’t usually discussed. I do have ideas in my head that I’d like to let loose, but like I said, I have a hard time expressing myself. Probably the worst problem I have is that I’m very unproductive. I tend to watch people do things more than I do things myself. Hell, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m watching people play video games more than playing video games myself. I feel incredibly lazy and selfish by doing this, but I don’t have much motivation to produce anything. See how I just keep running in circles? I have a very hard time getting homework done because of this. I’m very slow at progressing. I’d love to do something to help improve the world, but I’m having a hard time starting something for some reason. If in 10 years I don’t end up where I’m dreaming I’ll end up, then I’m not sure what I’ll do. I would imagine it to be hard to find a reason to live at that point.
What I’d love to do when making documentary shorts is to travel to uncommon places, live there, and interview the people there to experience and understand how other people live. I know this isn’t an easy thing to do, but I’m keeping it as a pipe dream anyway. I love hearing about and understanding how and why other people live their lives, which is why I want to do these documentary shorts to document these people’s lives and showcase them so everyone else can understand too. I especially love the films that document the strangest people, like what Vice did with the video Interview with a Cannibal. Some people may believe that this man is evil and heartless, but after watching the video they may believe that he’s just a human being who made a mistake and is sorry for it. It also makes me think about morality and whether I should look at him with remorse or spite.
I’m pretty sure I have many other things to say about myself but my thoughts have come to a halt so I’ll just stop here. I’ll elaborate more in the replies if need be. I'm disappointed in myself and I feel I could do so much more than I currently am. I don’t know what to do. Do you?
For the majority of my life I’ve kept my distance between people. I do not hang out with other people as much as the average person. Oddly enough, right now I don’t feel too depressed about not being around people. I actually seem fairly content with being alone. Either way, I still feel obligated to have stronger relationships with people. I think that’s the biggest problem I have. I don’t have very strong relationships with other people. One reason why I’m like this could be because I don’t know how to express myself well. I tend to be very reserved and keep my thoughts in my head. Very rarely do I express myself 100%. I’m often held back by the fear of being judged by others and possibly being hurt for voicing my opinion. Even though I know it’s a good idea to find out what people like and don’t like about my ideas, I’m too scared to hear people say I’m wrong for some reason.
I don’t think I know how to love others very well. I mean, I already have a pretty crappy relationship with my family members. We barely express ourselves to each other. This really worries me because I feel like I won’t be able to develop a romantic relationship with anyone (and I say anyone because I still want to give myself the opportunity to develop a romantic relationship with a woman). Every time I daydream about having a boyfriend I’m usually surrounded by many other friends and having a good time, but when I jump back to reality that isn’t so. I do hang out with friends and I do have friends that I keep in contact with, but I don’t do it nearly as frequently as a sociable person.
It may be because I don’t often have motivation to do anything. I don’t feel excited as often as I did as a kid. I mean, I often just shrug off bad grades I get in school or just shrug off bad incidents that happen to me. Some guy bumped into the rear of my car and dented it some weeks ago because I didn’t notice the lane merging, and honestly, I didn’t give a shit at the time. I’m glad my brother was there with me to tell me to stop and talk to the guy or else I probably would’ve just driven off. I feel like I’ve lost a lot of the passion to live since I was a kid. I don’t know why. I’ve never experienced any serious romantic intentions from another person in my life, and for some reason it seems unlikely that I’ll experience that any time soon.
One thing that has been really bothering me lately is how many people, including some of my friends, have expressed how they either had sex, kissed, or just dated people while in high school. I remember my high school experience being very reserved. I only met a few people and barely hung out with them, and I didn’t develop any strong relationship with them. Hell, I’m pretty sure all my life I haven’t had one person I could consider my “best friend.” I’ve just only “liked” everyone I’ve been around with. I love talking and being with people. I really do. By the way, I am sexually attracted to people, I mean, that’s how I figured out that I’m gay, but I just feel like my romantic attraction is lacking. Honestly, I have no idea how strong my romantic attraction is since I’ve never been in a romantic relationship. I'd really like to have sex with someone, but I feel obliged to learn how to love first.
I guess a problem could be that I never allowed people to become my friends as a kid. I was often afraid of almost everyone in my grade school classes because I genuinely thought they all hated me for whatever reason. I don’t know why I thought this but it somehow seemed logical that they would hate me for my looks, the way I acted, etc. I mean, I was mistreated by some classmates growing up, but that completely changed as I entered High School, and even then I did not want to meet people. I’ve been trying to make myself less reserved since I’ve entered college, but I think even now I haven’t done all that much. I’ve only made a few friends over the past semester when I could’ve made so much more. There’s a lot of people that I knew could’ve made good friends but I didn’t do anything because of my tendency to distance myself. I know the best thing for me to do is just to go out and talk to people without any fear, but like I said, I don’t have much motivation to do anything anymore.
I do have goals by the way. One of my biggest goals is to start working on documentaries on topics that aren’t usually discussed. I do have ideas in my head that I’d like to let loose, but like I said, I have a hard time expressing myself. Probably the worst problem I have is that I’m very unproductive. I tend to watch people do things more than I do things myself. Hell, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m watching people play video games more than playing video games myself. I feel incredibly lazy and selfish by doing this, but I don’t have much motivation to produce anything. See how I just keep running in circles? I have a very hard time getting homework done because of this. I’m very slow at progressing. I’d love to do something to help improve the world, but I’m having a hard time starting something for some reason. If in 10 years I don’t end up where I’m dreaming I’ll end up, then I’m not sure what I’ll do. I would imagine it to be hard to find a reason to live at that point.
What I’d love to do when making documentary shorts is to travel to uncommon places, live there, and interview the people there to experience and understand how other people live. I know this isn’t an easy thing to do, but I’m keeping it as a pipe dream anyway. I love hearing about and understanding how and why other people live their lives, which is why I want to do these documentary shorts to document these people’s lives and showcase them so everyone else can understand too. I especially love the films that document the strangest people, like what Vice did with the video Interview with a Cannibal. Some people may believe that this man is evil and heartless, but after watching the video they may believe that he’s just a human being who made a mistake and is sorry for it. It also makes me think about morality and whether I should look at him with remorse or spite.
I’m pretty sure I have many other things to say about myself but my thoughts have come to a halt so I’ll just stop here. I’ll elaborate more in the replies if need be. I'm disappointed in myself and I feel I could do so much more than I currently am. I don’t know what to do. Do you?
This post was deleted for the following reason: Heya, I totally appreciate where you're coming from but if you've mostly got a rant rather than a specific question, that's not really what Ask Metafilter is for. -- cortex
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