Sometimes I Think I Feel Lonely

And, I may in fact be lonely from time to time. But, this loneliness is new. I woke up this morning and felt utterly alone, as though I hadn't seen people in weeks; holed up in some office reading papers and writing my responses to them for class discussions.

But, the reality is that I have seen people. And, not just in my classes either. In the last two weeks, I've gone out dancing 4 times (with different groups of people each time). I've gone to three different BBQ's. I had dinner with a couple of people. In fact, I missed a dinner because i was studying and forgot about the time, so without my phone- I no showed. And, I've turned down several coffee invitations, a couple of offers for meals, and I've met a ton of people that I like. I even went to a street festival and met a woman that I thought was attractive.

So, I'm not devoid of human contact, not even purely social contact. I'm surprised by just how easy it has been to meet and connect with people; even "important" people. But, sometimes I get this abyss of loneliness that engulfs my heart; it's a desperation to be with and around people.

I realized just now that it's not actually loneliness, it's the expectation of loneliness. I have a TON of reading to do, and the one word that I have heard more than "the" is "isolation" in characterizing the graduate experience. Ph.D. students are isolated!!!

So, when I'm faced with a mound of reading that I don't want to tear into, like someone's thinking about someone else's perspectives, on some other guy's criticism, of an interpretation of a philosophy from 1652, as that impacts some social construction in 1852- uhm YAWN!

So, a pit of despair surfaces as though it actually characterizes my existence. It doesn't. But when it surfaces, I take on the expectation that this is what graduate school is like, and from this moment forward I will be totally and utterly alone. The reality is that I just met 5 or 6 people today that I'm excited about getting to know better, including a pretentious med student who is gonna be my roller blading buddy. The fact is that I'm not lonely. I just don't want to read this shit.

Well, back to it...