Aloneness in anticlimatic

Is this something everyone grapples with?

One of my earliest memories is laying in the dark, on my top bunk, in my first bedroom. I had some stuffed animals to keep me company, and in the eons before sleep that we children spent between bedtime and slumber, I used to pass the time by fantasizing. One fantasy I found myself drawn to often was pretending that I had been abducted by some type of alien ship out of time and space, and my small blanket pod of stuffed animals and I would just live there together forever in the twilight between dreams. Sometimes I’d pretend I had a friend with me, another human. A girl.

I’ve always been pretty comfortable alone, more than most perhaps, but like all humans I too have always deeply craved connection. I seldom found it. Here and there, but only temporarily. I pursued a lot of sex in my early adulthood to chase this end. It satiated, so long as it was fed often. It might be the closest one can get to someone physically, but like everything else it’s fleeting and carries no promise of forever. I’ve since ended those ways of living to pursue something deeper.

Sometimes I catch myself glancing at my girlfriend while she’s sleeping, grateful that she’s with me to be my partner through life- but I know her eyes glance at me with feelings and ideas that are completely her own, and in no way a subjective part of my fantasies of connection. Alone together, same old story.