Probably not my last post about how fucking lonely I am

Basically I feel like I haven't had a close friendship for most of the duration of my life, and what friendships I have had seem false in retrospect, or necessarily surface-deep. I know, I *know* that [experience is a hermetic chamber and one subject can never truly know another](https://eidolon.net/?story=Closer), but I think my trouble is more than metaphysical, like I think it really is a problem with me, but for the life of me I can't figure out what.

I think I read somewhere (or maybe I told myself this at one point and convinced myself that I read it somewhere) that it's possible to be reasonably happy in this state, if only one learns to "love oneself" and sometimes I do a damn good job of loving myself, or at least being content with myself and not feeling strongly that my existence is a cosmic mistake, but the problem with this strategy is it's like throwing a length of twine over a pully, tying one end to my beltloop, and pulling myself up. If I lose my grip for even a moment – someone notices I've made a mistake, or doesn't give me enough attention, or reacts to something I say or do in a way I wasn't prepared for, or I'm not able to express myself coherently – I can plummet all the way back to the bottom, with no one there to grab the twine.

It's not like people are mean or cold to me or unwilling to ever act sincerely friendly to me, but I always feel like it's because I've successfully lied about myself, and that also feels unsustainable and unsatisfactory. And the more I acclimatize to my loneliness, the harder it becomes to get out of it. I'm unable to see clearly whether there's potential for a real connection. I'll silently pledge my lifelong devotion to new friends in the faint hope that I can wish it into being. I'll form theories about what this or that person might be like and be surprised and confused every time when they're wrong.

I don't know. You have to put this stuff somewhere. If I took a couple cheapo web quizzes they'd probably diagnose me with BPD.