"Are you pushing people away?"No. I am not.
"You will end up lonely if you keep doing this," they say.
"Make more friends"
I don't respond. Not because I have no answer,
but because not every explanation is owed,
and not every silence is rejection.
I do not resent them.
I understand where they come from.
They try to care in the way they know how,
and I am grateful for the good moments,
for the people who shaped me,
for the kindness that found its way into my life.
But I've learned something along the way,
even good friendship does not erase loneliness.
Tell me.
Can someone truly carry the weight of your entire inner world?
I have been a good friend before.
I know what it means to be present, to listen, to stay.
But I also know this;
even the closest people only ever see fragments of you.
A sister sleeps besides you,
yet does not know every thought you bury.
A mother hears your stories,
yet never the ones you can bring yourself to speak.
A partner may love you deeply,
and still there will be corners of you they will never fully reach.
We are, in the end,
solitary minds living shared lives.
I once pray for someone
who would know everything about me.
But how could that exist,
when I myself am still learning who I am?
So I began studying myself instead.
Not to close myself off from others
but to stop abandoning myself in the process of belonging.
And no, I don't "push people away."
I simply learn to prioritize.
Sometimes growth looks like choosing sleep over late-night talks,
choosing work over invitations.
choosing dicipline over distraction.
Not because people matter less,
but because direction matters too.
Growing up is not about liking or disliking people.
It is about knowing what must be done,
even when it means saying no.
Still, people ask for explanations.
But not everything needs to be explained
to be valid.
Listening is kind - yes.
But forced understanding is not healing.
Sometimes the most respectful thing
is to let people carry their own weight
without demanding they unpack it for you.
Everyone is already carrying enough.
Work, dreams, family, survival, uncertainty.
Do not add more simply because curiosity feels like care.
Respect is not intrusion disguise as concern.
Respect is space.
And about the future,
about love, about marriage, about being "pity-worthy"
I do not argue.
Because I trust that what is meant for me
will understand me in ways beyond explanation.
Not perfectly, not effortlessly
but truthfully.
And perhaps that is what marriage is
not completion,
but continuous understanding
between two imperfectly known worlds.
Above all, I've learned this,
respect people's paths.
We never truly know
what someone had to survive to become who they are.
We only see the surface of decisions
that were once prayers, struggles, and quite endurance.
So give people space.
Let them lead their lives in their own way.
And if I seem distant,
it is not absence.
It is simply this,
I am still here,
just learning how to exist without losing myself.