Numb is a Feeling.

"Numbness is an absence of feeling," he said.

"Yeah, but you can feel numb."

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I have a theory- not just about the kinds of people who are here, but how everyone is different in the same way.

A couple weeks ago, I was having this sort of ache in my chest. I felt like I was hollow on the inside, and that I could feel every echo in my stomach when people walked in as "friends", but somehow also walked out as "friends." I didn't know how to feel about all these people who seemed so much cooler and so much happier than me.

Why couldn't I be happy like them? Why was I not satisfied with all my new "friends"?

I guess my timing was off, as always.

A couple days later, three different people on different occasions came to me feeling the same unidentifiable itching in their hearts. And boy did it feel good to be on the other side of that problem.

I know that seems like a really despicable thing to feel: Happiness when others are sad. But I don't think that is necessarily what it was. Something about going through an emotion, being able to finally identify it, and then helping others get over it with more comfort- I just felt...useful.

My theory is that the lack of an existing social/emotional support system coupled with a common desire to make intimate and substantial relationships quickly, creates this uneasy atmosphere of being lonely in company and being uncommitted to the gradual development of human connections.

Ok. Now let's #breakitdown.

What I think happened is that since people came to Minerva from all over the globe (mostly) and literally came to a place where they have absolutely no friends (also mostly), that whatever support system of friends and family and people that they had before they came to Minerva, was completely and unwaveringly ripped out from under them.

Thus, this hole that leaving "everyone you know and trust with your heart" has left becomes something of a black hole. Now I won't pretend to know anything about physics or astronomy or space, but what I think I know is that black holes are infinitely dense and they try to suck up literally everything around themselves to fill that somehow really full emptiness up until the point that they implode or explode or some science stuff like that. That's pretty much how that horrible feeling feels. Like you want to quickly and desperately need to fill that hole of comforting people with more comforting people so that you you don't feel like you have a dense metal ball of emotions in your chest anymore.

Anyway, now that I have successfully butchered science, the rest of my "theory" says that in this period of time that people feel a hole in their chest, they try to fill it by quickly finding and building relationships with people that they blindly hope will have the same meaning and value and depth that their old relationships did, and thus, they go on this desperate hunt for the ideal perfectly perfect circle to fit the circle shaped hole in their chest, only to find that in reality, nobody has the slightest clue to what shape they are, let alone what shape anybody else is. And in this hunt for the perfectly perfect circle, instead of committing to building those similarly meaningful, valuable, deep relationships that they were seeking, they instead create super artificial, seemingly instantaneous connections with people and ignore the facade of "oh my god I think we may be/might be/are perfect together but before I commit and make sure I just wanna try hanging out with this other person also to make sure that you're not just a square whose edges look round because I want to fill this hole in my chest before waiting to find out."

And then the horribleness just feeds itself.

Because then, people feel really depressed in private, but then momentarily happy in public, and everybody thinks that everybody is happy, when in reality, nobody freaking understands that nobody is happy because we chose to just ignore the possibility that we are all just the same people with different experiences. And people complain about superficial relationships and get themselves hurt all over again but everyone is still aching and aching to fill that hole in their chest but no one gets to and no one stops and says ouch this is painful but the only way to find a circle in a field of square is to slow down and learn and understand and grow with people until you realize that you can always find a square in a circle if you just stop and take the time.

Because they're all really interesting people. And no matter who I go and talk to, I can have a deep, engaging, and thoughtful conversation and that tells me that, if anything, we are all more alike than we are different. We just have to choose to look for circles in squares, instead of squares in circles.

I think I've tired out the shape thing, but my point is: If everyone would just stop pretending to be happy, accept that we are not, and then just move on and slowly start building long term relationships, that would be fan-freaking-tastic because I wouldn't have to be that-one-sad-chick anymore.

I think my friend had a good way of putting it: We're in withdrawal.

We're in withdrawal from the comfort of an addiction, whether that be the comfort of friends, family, love, or just simply belonging.

And it is not that I feel like I don't belong here, but that I feel like I belong too much. It is the feeling that you have all of the pieces to the puzzle, but you just don't know what piece goes where. You don't know how they all fit together.

But I guess like all things, only time will tell. After all, no matter how big the puzzle, (theoretically) we can put it together so long as all the pieces are there.

It's just a matter of time.