do you feel like there is a wall between you & other people?

what the fuck is up with you curtis

I know where young Crut is comin' from, I do.

yes all the time but I don't start threads abt it I figured it's just the alienation of being part of that top 10% etc

I tend to deal with this by drinking - heavily - but then again it's a sunday night and I'm listening to cristoph de babalon cranked way loud so maybe I'm not the dude to talk to

if there is it would only be because i put it there. i don't think there is though

I'm on gchat son

eosj all OVER that money

I'm listening to cristoph de babalon cranked way loud

This is, of course, a very good thing!

Perhaps one of the sad things about getting old is that you start to realize that you aren't as different from everyone else as you used to think.

i don't feel this way but i don't necessarily think it's uncommon

you seem like the coolest dude though curtis...

if there is it's only because the state of california put it there.

I think I did to a large degree for much or probably most of my life, but in my old age I am more interested in interacting with other people just for the sake of getting to know them as human beings, as opposed to looking to them to confirm or disprove my sense of self in some way...I think that feeling at home in the world follows naturally from a sense of groundedness and humility that can be difficult to embody when you are younger, especially if you are "different" by virtue of being especially bright or sensitive or good-looking or self-aware or whatever.

It goes without saying that you are not going to be able to connect with everyone on the same level. Some people you can connect with very deeply and effortlessly-- those folks wind up being close friends...others you will likely never connect with in the same fashion, but the common bond of humanity is still there and worth investigating. I think it's good to sometimes experiment and deliberately engage with people that you'd normally be tempted to slag off as being dull or whatever. Often the results are surprising.

I felt a lot like that until my untreated depression was finally medicated. This is a serious response, btw, it only looks flippant.

I realised I had to stop rejecting the help and friendliness other people WERE offering me, or the suggestions they'd make that were eminently sensible, which I'd reject out of hand and sit in a fog of my own making. Its hard to break that habit though.

how common is this?

it is the single favorite theme of rock operas.

http://www.sptimesphotos.com/blogs/tampaarts/tommy.jpghttp://api.ning.com/files/8WiXkqOFMtlt6ayHRFgo7CTr8HYZ2IAYyxjXwL*OgRqJrvh7MpCLcSNJ7rhuipohMQZlOO41Pbeh6wus-AcfGcKky05j28P3/Pink_floyd_the_wall.jpg

I felt a lot like that until my untreated depression was finally medicated. This is a serious response, btw, it only looks flippant.

haw nah I've already been getting medication/treatment & it's working great - I just keep having these revelations like "damn wtf why have I been freaking about about dumb shit all my life? have I really been crazy all this time?"

I get this feeling a bit, in a mild form. Not an irreconcilable difference, but this big gap between me and other people that I want to bridge but can't work out how to do it. Thing is, I think most people have that feeling sometimes. Striving to bridge it is a good reason for being alive I think.

I think it's good to sometimes experiment and deliberately engage with people that you'd normally be tempted to slag off as being dull or whatever

I am those people. So, hell yeah I do feel like there's a wall.

I'm not under any illusion that I'm above any 10% line (though I'm all for the Cristoph de Babalon); as a teenager I thought being this much of a fuckup must be a sign of genius, but by now I'm pretty much resigned to the idea there's nothing clever or interesting about me, just this indefinable aura of extreme social awkwardness (oh, and being easily the least attractive person you've never seen) that keeps everyone away whether I mean to or not, and given that the rare occasions anyone's tried to get through it have surprised me to the point of forgetting how to form sentences I guess I do plan to keep it there, it's much less embarrassing.

I should not be this emo already on a Monday morning, right?

Curse you God, for making me this way.

yes all the time but I don't start threads abt it I figured it's just the alienation of being part of that top 10% etc

but you can understand that it can feel a bit less alienating when you find out lots of other people feel it too? It doesn't help you deal with it, like, but it's nice to feel a bit less freaky because of it.

So, er, yes. Me too.

i have a hard time relating to people, but i don't consider myself an outcast, mainly because i don't think people notice or care enough about me to cast me out of anything. i have my small group of friends and i'm cool not being seen as really cool or a role model or anything. i have a reputation for grim humor and being negative. kind of hurts me career-wise, but whatever. in my case i think it is cased by moving a lot as a kid, and having to deal with death and tragedy at a young age.

Yeah, I feel it, too. Even with the people I'm closest to. Felt that way as long as I can remember, my earliest memories being around a year and a half.

I'm guessing this is really common. And I'm guessing this is something that is at least partially projected. (A guess I base on nothing, really.)

like, do you have a lingering sense that you are an outcast, or that there's some sort of intangible but irreconcilable difference between you and the rest of humanity that means you can never truly belong? how common is this?

nah.

i think i've always felt a bit out of sync with my peers, but i tend not to worry too much about it these days. or at least i shove it into the back of my mind. and i certainly wouldn't say that i am irreconcilably different than the rest of humanity.

and yeah, i think it is extremely common (we're not all actually that special) and the wall can be your own product, though i don't really know how you break it down once it's up.
xpost

http://granitegrok.com/pix/Reagan%20at%20Brandenburg.jpg

yar it's a pretty common feeling. I'm not bothered about feeling like this (much) anymore - it was really bad a few years ago when i was around crutis' age... so heads up dude, might take a while but i think it'll eventually pass. i just realized how much I actually love being on my own, in my head, most of the time... even if i hate the feeling of loneliness or being somehow different from everybody. it's just a matter of perception anyway - i doubt i or anyone here is really all that different from the mob.

I'm even kind of an introvert on ilx and that prob says a lot about me considering how long i've been a poster here - I'm not shy, awkward or quiet, I just very rarely feel like exerting my presence in a crowd unless someone engages me... and so tend to think of myself as being on the other side of that wall. but now i know that the wall is there partly cause i built it, which is fine... i just gotta remember to make an effort to break it down occasionally. and it does take effort - i don't think it's easy for anybody once you've gotten in that habit of feeling constantly out of step with everybody else.

tompetty.mp3

http://api.ning.com/files/8WiXkqOFMtlt6ayHRFgo7CTr8HYZ2IAYyxjXwL*OgRqJrvh7MpCLcSNJ7rhuipohMQZlOO41Pbeh6wus-AcfGcKky05j28P3/Pink_floyd_the_wall.jpg

^^^

http://www.gotpetsonline.com/pictures-gallery/exotic-pictures-breeders-babies/wallaby-pictures-breeders-babies/pictures/wallaby-0014.jpg

anybody who makes a "do you feel there is a wallogina between you & other people" joke is a communist!

oh now you're just inviting it

curtis, i think you should not put too much thought into this because a lot of it - just a guess - is merely growing pains. you're in school, your relationships are changing, your friends are changing; you're just growing into your own skin, and this is a good thing.

YES

small (or major) consolation: I feel there is a wall between all other pairs of people; maybe the walls are okay.

I think it's good to sometimes experiment and deliberately engage with people that you'd normally be tempted to slag off as being dull or whatever

I have found that I get along best basically with anyone who is not like me. My best friends tend to be either was-very-much-a-frat-guy-in-college types or middle-age-women-still-using-AOL types. Culturally-aware, educated 20- and 30-somethings and I just never fucking get along, and I don't think it's because I carry and prejudice into it. I think it's usually a case of too much wall between the 2 of us (meaning most people like myself carry too much self-consciousness/self-loathing/despair).

Perhaps one of the sad things about getting old is that you start to realize that you aren't as different from everyone else as you used to think.

this is almost OTM except it is like totally the BEST thing about getting old.

Maybe the 'wall' thing is just that because we're based in an individualist society we find it hard to relate to people. OR we needed to have gone to grammar school and found better ways to articulate ourselves when feeling alienated instead of 'You talkin' to me punk?' or 'Go fuck yourselves San Diego' or summat

Dude, we're both young guys who listen to old OMD records. That means you're in my posse. YOU *BELONG* IN DA KING BOY P KREW, BRO!

Maybe the 'wall' thing is just that because we're based in an individualist society we find it hard to relate to people...

Also, I think taking one's self too seriously has something to do with it-- if you constantly think of your life as constituting some major "project" in which you have to perform for people or impress them or project a certain image, then it's not hard to fathom how a sense of there being a barrier between you and "the outside world" might result. Not that you shouldn't take yourself seriously on some level and live accordingly, but, in a culture that obsesses over measurements of achievement and status, I'm guessing that most people err on the side of over-seriousness as regards how they carry themselves through the day

there actually are a number of walls between me and other people, straight up.

hi curtis!! i feel this way.

but by now I'm pretty much resigned to the idea there's nothing clever or interesting about me, just this indefinable aura of extreme social awkwardness (oh, and being easily the least attractive person you've never seen)

I've never met you, but I suspect this is complete and utter bullshit

(what usually happens is i try and break the wall by talking)

post on banriquit's wall | my wall-to-wall with banriquit

everybody get a grip

n.b. i appreciate there are communication difficulties with some, even many people but honestly there ARE folx out there on yr wavelength, folx that you ought to be able to find, as a service to them as well as yourself, and to claim there's a "wall" surrounding you is not only self-defeating but selfish too.

n.b.II. i'm the sort of person who starts conversations w/ strangers on public transport so maybe this is insensitive and blasé

"MR CRUTIS TEAR DOWN THAT WALL"

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c4237-6.jpg

to claim there's a "wall" surrounding you is not only self-defeating but selfish too.

I agree with that!

yeah curtis you heard me you're SELFISH, now go away and think about that a bit more ;-)

=)

i'm surprised you didn't start this dell

Definitely a wall between me and ILX. And it certainly is a great wall.

Everybody "here" builds the wall up higher or tears it down as needed.

I came to drinking much later than my peers. Discovering that stuff helped, let me tell you.

yeah it did wonders for you before you died in that bathtub

http://members.aol.com/n2thewoods/gifs/playbill.gif

i read this japanese story about people turning into snakes and shit

Perhaps one of the sad things about getting old is that you start to realize that you aren't as different from everyone else as you used to think.

My experience has in many ways been the opposite, actually.

yo croot

we young but gettin older, goin through some transitional shit, so it makes sense to be alienated. you not crazy, doggie. just a bro in his twenties. we all in this shit together tho.

also in case it hasn't been posted this is from counterfit xkcd

http://lolrider.com/images/whatup.gif

:D

loooooool

"Perhaps one of the sad things about getting old is that you start to realize that you aren't as different from everyone else as you used to think."

My experience has in many ways been the opposite, actually.

-- Charlie Rose Nylund

I don't understand. You're sad or you are different? Seriously, I want to know what you mean.

He's the bipolar opposite.

Well, Curtis, I can only do a ( how do you make the <<< do the uppy agreed thing? for other posts) and say that my impression of you was SO different from who you are. I guess I had never seen a picture of you, so SEEING you was really startling.

You handle yourself amazingly well, given the huge personality you are in this community. When I was your age...I would have been banned. So maybe this particular forum suits you, and the wall you feel is in the ye olde regular world.
You're also a student, and you're in a structure that IS a wall - you are being judged and graded.

You're really calm, insightful, funny and sweet online. I dare say those qualities exist offline as well.
I'm not going to talk down to your youth, because you are already way better at this shit than I am. The sweetness that you share, and your logical answers are so precious.

Would you like to know how I thought you looked before I saw your picture?

We might have to have a thread about it!

"Artist's Impressions Of Other ILXors Based On Character Rather Than Appearance"

lol aimurchie what did you think I looked like? (also please tell me you didn't go by the pic I just posted in wdyll last night b/c that's not actually me)

I did! I am like omg he's this very gothy guy!
So that was a joke picture? Here's ME being all sensitive. Well, whatever, you ARE super cool.

I still think it would be interesting to tell each other what do you think I look like, based only on user names.

Burt_ stanton, to me, is middle aged, sitting in a lazy boy, kinda an Archie Bunker tyoe.

Deeznuts - a cartoon character, kind of like road runner, but running TOWARDS stuff. (In a good way!)

Artist's Impressions Of Other ILXors Based On Character Rather Than Appearance

Well I don't have to imagine you, do I?

OMG - you're schilling your own thread on a thread! priceless!

yeah i am and you should do it even if you know what they look like. i want some kind of dorian gray shee-yit goin on here

Curtls - In my mind you are a man who has his own borad.

Do you feel like there is a wall between you and other people?

aimurchie is juno

BIG HOOS aka the steendriver is the engine driver of a Choo choo train.

Who's juno?

ref only makes sense if you've seen the movie, not suggesting you are a pregnant teenager

I'll accept that as sassy.

precisely

I don't understand. You're sad or you are different? Seriously, I want to know what you mean.

As I get older, I realize that I'm actually more different from most other people than I used to think I was -- or, maybe more accurately, that the number of people who are really on my wavelength, and who seem to relate to those parts of me I consider most important, is quite small. I can get on quite well with most people, and be a friend to many, but form a genuine two-way connection with very few. However, this makes me appreciate my closest friends all the more, while recognizing how few and far between such friends really are.

^^^ Yes.

x-post Your username is awesome.

I guess I have another perspective - because there IS a wall between me and other people in my daily work life. One person, who I adore, is slowly going into the realm of Alzheimers.That's a wall that I HAVE to breach. If I don't challenge that wall he will miss out on the wonderful things that are still here for him.

Oh thats so sad. I live in fear of that happening to me :(

One person, who I adore, is slowly going into the realm of Alzheimers.That's a wall that I HAVE to breach.

I've been through that. Dementia is very hard when it affects someone you love. I wish you luck, patience and strength dealing with it.

Thanks.I get paid to do it. It's my job.

Sorry Daniel Esq. That was very snarky. I'm in a bad mood today.

I DO feel as though there is an insurmountable wall between myself and the rest of humanity, but it doesn't have anything to do with "irreconcilable differences." That's the most frustrating thing about it. I know I can relate to them and they can relate to me, but there's still this very wide gulf. I don't know what it is. The best way I can approximate it in words is a communications gap, or rather, a gulf in the social geography. It is a very difficult thing to talk about. Why am I posting this?

hate to go all high school yearbook, but Kurt Vonnegut OTFM

"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"

reading through this thread, the more i thought about it, i realized that i don't have this feeling at all, and i don't think i ever did. however, almost all of my closest and tightest friends are very much this way, and have expressed similar sentiments to this thread at one time or another. in some way that might speak to the sort of permeable barrier this wall really is, and that the people on the other side of the wall that seem so different might be the workable turnkey of sorts. just musing here...

I have a wall between myself and other people to protect all my stuff.
I can tell that you criminals are constantly angling for my series one garbage pail kids (complete) or my electric tv.

x-post Your username is awesome.

-- ENBB, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 3:42 AM (20 hours ago) Bookmark Link

that's what i said!

i think "wall" is a very ambiguous term. but i do think lots of people feel "different", and wish they could get along with others in a more satisfying way.

" "

The question seems to be more: Is it so frightening to have the feeling that there's a wall between you and the rest of humanity?
I believe I understand what you're on about Curtis, having experienced life the very same way myself. But the thing that made me stop worrying about this was the notion that that very same wall makes me the individual I am. It's not just keeping you away from something, but is protective about you as well. I consider this to be a good thing. I don't want to play along with the rest most of the times. I'm happy enough just watching life and humanity roll through the times with me being in my self-chosen spot on the side line. In reality, I'm just as much a part of humanity as anyone, but I prefer to believe I'm watching it all happen from the side.

You talk about "you and the rest of humanity"? But what is humanity, other than the sum of every individual alive? It's odd how we don't reckon ourself to be a part of it, whereas on the other hand you, internets-Crutis, are part of 'my' image of humanity. Everyone of you is, except me. L'Humanité c'est les autres.
We all have that wall - for some it may be The Chinese wall, for others merely a curbstone. It's there, but it's nothing to be afraid of.

x-post Your username is awesome.

-- ENBB

that's what i said!

Awww, thanks to both of you!

hate to go all high school yearbook, but Kurt Vonnegut OTFM

"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"

otm, assuming everyone gets the irony

Yes, with other ILXors, lately.

A wall of singing human vaginas.

I feel it is a healthy and normal boundary.

Its a wall world after all.

i started feeling this the other day, walking down the street. something like, i want so much to connect with other people, but i can't always. because of certain ways that i am. it's a frustrating feeling! but overall i think i connect OK.

I think I may be paranoid schizophrenic sometimes due to my frequent delusions of grandeur, but then again being cognizant of the fact probably rules that out.

I dunno...alls I know is, the only time I actually feel relaxed is when I've finished my second beer (pilsner size)