Do You Sleep Anymore? in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

I’m sorry I haven’t written in forever, I’ve just not had the desire to write. There are dozens of incomplete entries in the drafts because for a while there I really was trying to sit down once a week and hammer everything out, but I never had enough time to complete them. Some of them, I look back and see how much things have changed since I got here… and how much they haven’t changed since I was in California.

Since I’ve been here for a while now, I think I finally have some perspective on exactly what it was I was looking for.

One of the hardest questions that I’ve faced, nearly constantly is “why did you come to Thailand?” Frankly, I don’t have a great answer to that question. There are several responses that I give depending on how deep I want to go or whether I want to frighten that person off.

I like that I can’t really talk to people. It’s not frustrating at all. I’m completely serious. I can exist and do my own thing without really having to bother anyone else. It’s like complete isolation in a room full of people. I can finally be alone without having nobody around.

I’m also realizing exactly how deficient socially I am. I was listening to a podcast recently and something one of the comedians said to me really made sense. She was talking about how she, having seven brothers and sisters, found it strange going to her friends’ houses who were the only child. Then she started talking about how their frame of mind is different than hers. Basically, when you have siblings, you know you are part of this group of people so you think about the group. You think about things in terms of others because you got into fights, yelled and comforted one another. Only children think about themselves and all of their perspectives are based on how it affects them.

That was a really interesting thing to hear because I was an only child for most of my childhood. My little brothers weren’t born until I was in high school. And I wasn’t just an only child, I was an isolated child. Most of my time was spent with adults, not other children. My family was so worried about my disease that they didn’t really let me out of their sight too often (I was in high school and was not allowed to walk home because it was “dangerous”).

I 100% do not know how to relate or socialize with people. Full stop. Furthermore, any kind of socializing I do actually manage to accomplish usually puts me in stress. And I don’t mean “stress” like I have too many things to do, I mean the scientific definition of the word “stress” where your body feels like its in fight-or-flight.

Being around people costs me energy and gives me wrinkles.

So I moved a country where few people speak English and I couldn’t possibly be put into that much stress anymore.

The whole wonderful arc with Ark, the extremely sexy man from the Quiver entry, broke my heart. I laughed about it. It was so cliche, being heartbroken on Valentine’s Day. But I went through it and I’m fine. We still talk, though not as often, and it made me think that perhaps a lot of my relationships are like Plato’s shadows on the cave. Because of my poor communication, there are things in my relationships that I accept as realities which are really just fragments of the larger picture.

I see all of this, but I have no idea what to do about it.

But in reality, there’s only one real question that could possibly make Thailand better or worse than California: do you sleep anymore? Yes, I do. Quite peacefully, as a matter of fact.