Curry Zawa Kaoru's Creative Counseling - “I hate talking to people but I hate being left out too.” Those contradicting feelings are totally natural.

I'm also someone who struggles with socializing and prefers solitude. My love for being alone has grown so strong that I rarely leave my room, let alone my house. I only get the opportunity to interact with people outside my family a few times a year, and even then, it's often just with editors and they’re barely human, so it doesn’t really count.

However, I'm not particularly resilient to loneliness. If anything, I actually hate being lonely. Like you, deep down, I crave human connection and, at the very least, want someone to pay attention to me.

At first glance, I might seem like a contradiction, like if someone was the biggest meat lover in the vegan world. But honestly, I don't think it's that unusual, because disliking things and things tiring you out are two separate truths. 

No matter how much you love an unruly horse, it's physically impossible to ride it for long periods of time. Similarly, people who like socializing but find it exhausting aren't that rare. Some people just don't get more enjoyment out of it than they get fatigued, so they choose the easier path of avoiding interaction with others as much as possible. You're not some weird creature who dislikes people yet obsesses over them and craves inclusion. Plenty of people feel this way.

But even if you choose the easy path, you remain interested in people and are desperate for connection, which is why that lingering loneliness persists. It’s not strange to feel lonely because you can't join a circle of friends, or to mentally join in on others' online interactions and complaints. In fact, for us lonely people who enjoy solitude, it's not an exaggeration to call it normal.

At the very least, it's healthier than just feeling angry about not being invited without having to deal with the exhaustion of daily interactions. The way we quietly distract ourselves with internal monologues, keeping hidden the loneliness we chose as the price for comfort, is actually a display of honesty.

If you absolutely can’t stand being lonely, then you'll just have to engage in interactions, even if it tires you out.

Life is about choices. You can't skip the tedious back-and-forth and just expect to be invited to the afterparty. And even if you were invited, that afterparty would be exhausting as hell.

However, this leaves people like us, who crave human connection yet also desire solitude, with a grim choice: either exhaust ourselves trying to join social circles, or endure loneliness alone. That's tough.

That's where creativity comes to the rescue.

In fact, isn't creativity the ultimate tool? It lets us unilaterally engage with others without the hassle of constant interaction.

I think there are many reasons why we tire of human interaction, including the rigmarole of putting on our "normal human" cosplay every time we have to go meet anyone. But another reason is that we must constantly consider each individual person's feelings. It's exhausting to try to figure out how to choose the right words for the other person's mood and the situation, then deliver them at the right moment. Not to mention the major post-mortem at home, wondering if we said the wrong thing!

In contrast, creative writing has a general reader demographic in mind and you just have to meet their specific conditions. For example, people who live, eat, and breathe a specific pairing with a merry bad end... just want that specific pairing with a merry bad end. It doesn't require choosing words to cater to any specific individual's feelings. It's a rather one-sided act of communication: writing whatever you want and tossing it out onto the internet.

The most wonderful thing in writing is when someone picks up what you've thrown out there, reads it, and really enjoys it. That feeling itself is like a self-insert fanfic come true.

If I were a rabbit, maybe the loneliness would have already gotten me by the throat, but luckily I'm a human who finds my life pretty comfortable. That's all thanks to the people who read what I've thrown out there and tell me they like it.

It might not be the kind of interaction you're looking for, but when your work gets comments, at least you're not alone.

If you know you're not suited for general socializing, the best approach is to interact with the community by showing them your work rather than chatting directly. If you gain fame that way, you might even get invited to events anyway.

Since you have the ability to use creation as a tool to distract yourself from loneliness, why waste that skill spending all your time focusing on that unruly horse of direct interaction and letting yourself be resentful about your isolation? Put your talent to good use instead.

If you consider sharing your creations the best form of interaction for you, then spending time mentally commenting on every single thing that happens in the community is a total waste of time.

When you find yourself retorting to someone else's complaints with “If you have time to care about that, you should be writing instead,” take that same advice yourself. Get to work on your own creations.

↑ Feel free to send your troubles in languages other than Japanese, too.