Thanks to everyone who has stayed with me this far. This last bit is inspired by Anthony Storr’s book, “Solitude: A Return to the Self.”

The world is a fairly harsh place in my opinion and my experience. Abandonment, the end result of shame, seems to be a feature of the landscape. I had better not let my fear of abandonment become so intense that it leads to self-abandonment.

If the standards of the majority determine that my individual experience of relationships falls short of the minimum criteria for success, then those standards aren’t much good to me. I can’t wait for other people’s approval of the course my life has taken before I decide to keep going with things.

As far as sex in particular goes, I mean, seriously, what the hell purpose does it serve, except to make you feel like more of a failure, to drive that feeling even deeper?

Can love, sex and even just mere belonging truly have the value others say they have if it feels this bad not to have them?

Does my failure to conform to the expectations of the majority, or even to fulfill my own desires, mark me as a failure? Does it mean I shouldn’t even bother looking for another model to follow? Do I not deserve to be able to determine my own criteria for a successful life?

Relationships are important, but even the perception of them as less intense emotionally than required to satisfy some imagined ideal can be too debilitating to make it worth clinging to that ideal. I have to change my standards to something that does require me to feel so much agony when things do not go as expected.

I think a great many people come to prefer their own company, simply to avoid conflict. I think that a life spent primarily in one’s own company can be rough going, especially at the beginning, and that there will be bumps at many points along the road, but I think the benefits of such a choice become more apparent in the long run. At least be aware of the potential pitfalls of relationships, especially if you are prone to believing that other people should always meet your standards of rational conduct.

My default setting is to do whatever I think society wants me to do, and then to nurse my shame at having failed to do what society wants with a bout of debauchery which drives my self-esteem down to its absolute lowest point, where the breakup of the self becomes an imminent threat. Then my resentment of society begins to build, so I do even more things intended to spite it. Thus, it is best for me as an individual and for society as a whole if society and I go our separate ways.