A lot of people — most people, apparently — enjoy connecting with other people. They look forward to socializing.
For me, though, socializing is like paying bills. Every single text, invitation, and incoming phone call is like receiving bills in the mail, or stuffed under the front door.
Knowing someone wants my time and attention is like being slapped with a debt, and I am already overdue, in arrears, maxxed out, and can’t possibly make enough “money”/energy to ever pay off all that I owe.
In the past I could motivate myself to pay these social bills a bit more hecause I didn’t want to miss out; I had not yet experienced a lot of social “firsts” or maximized my potential as a social being, so there was a bit more of a payoff, or at least a feeling of successfully checking things off of my human-experience to-do lists.
Now that I’m over fifty, though, I have enough experience to see the balance sheet just getting more and more painfully red and bloody, as almost all social interactions very clearly lead to more debts. More mistakes to make up for, more ongoing interest being accrued, and less and less “reward” to mitigate the costly outlays of energy.
I am buried under piles of social debt I feel I can never pay off.
It’s not that I don’t need to interact with people at all, or that I get absolutely nothing positive overall from social experiences, but mostly it is fairly paltry, like the satisfaction of having paid a bill on time, and being able to file the paperwork away until it comes due again next month. There’s a gratitude I experience: like I am grateful the disposal company comes and hauls away our trash, and I am grateful for clean running water piped in by the city, and I am grateful for electricity. But paying these bills, and being able to do so sometimes with a great deal of gratitude does not fulfill me. It is not the realization of big dreams. It is not what I feel like I’ve been put on this earth for, to pay these bills and then make just enough money to pay them again, on and on, repeating into forever.
In so many ways the social bills are way worse than the on-paper actual-money ones, because they are so hard to quantify and they come with such unpredictable irregularity. I never know if I’ve paid enough, or what form of payment they want me to use. They never appreciate how I have to move the funds around to try to make it work, and they never seem to realize I am paying, but on the bill there is really nothing but smudges and demands. It is really unclear what I am being provided, and even when there is something written on it, it’s not even something that I ordered or want to be subscribed to. It is almost entirely something that they want, and that I have to both provide and pay for. But they think issuing the bill, and serving me with needy reminders that it is due overdue way past due disappointingly collecting interest and about to be sent to collections is in no way adding value to my life.
I feel depleted, and like there is no end in sight.
Sometimes I feel so tired that I just fantasize about closing out all of these accounts. Nobody understands I need to at least renegotiate the terms of our contracts.
“I miss you” has got to be the worst one. It’s just getting worse and worse and worse.
I miss you. You owe me. It’s been so long since you sent me a payment. And it is none of my concern why you have not had money for me. That’s your problem, and I don’t care and/or I take it very personally that your accounts are dry. I believe you are spending the money somewhere else. Somewhere selfish. I don’t believe you are empty. I cannot conceive of it. Surely me sending you more bills will fill you up. I cannot imagine how incredibly dried up you must be at this point in life, and I find it so offensive that you do not want me to stuff more paperwork and bills down your throat into your ears cram it down you until you can’t breathe until you aren’t functioning at all and hurt my feelings by your inability to process words and say the normal right things. You are crazy, and that is why you can’t pay the bills I have for you it’s so easy you just don’t want to do it you just only care about yourself and not me and my endless bills bills bills my need for your time and attention when I demand it or at least within twelve hours give me what I need I need I need your services your payments.