The Ghost of the Person You Once Were
There are certain people who have a fascination with the “old” you. They are interested in discussing the failures that occurred in your thirties or what you used to be like before you got wiser. This keeps you firmly rooted in something that you left behind long ago.
It is nice to look back sometimes but it is also draining being around a person who cannot see beyond what you used to be like. You have grown. You are different in many ways, having become softer in some respects and harder in others. How can you enjoy today when the people around you keep reminding you of your past?
The people who are worth having around are those who are interested in the person you currently are and not who you once were decades ago.
The “Crowded Loneliness”
Then, we have the lonely relationship – the one you have absolutely nothing in common with anymore. Here, you simply sit there, surrounded by a thick silence because you know you have absolutely nothing more to say to each other.
There’s a particular kind of loneliness that occurs when you find yourself around the wrong kind of people; it is lonelier even than solitude. The reason why so many do not want to leave such empty relationships is due to the fear of a “void,” but the void is almost always better than the illusion of an “us.”
