I am lonelier after some conversations than after whole evenings alone

Dear Delyara, That seems impossible until you live it often enough. There are people I can speak to for an hour and come away feeling more isolated than if I had spent the same hour quietly folding washing in an empty room. It happens when I give the version of me that can function socially but leave the actual deeper state untouched. It happens when someone listens to the outline of what I’m saying but not the emotional shape inside it. It happens when the room stays easy at the cost of me staying mostly hidden. I think that is one of the loneliest adult experiences: connection that increases your awareness of what still did not connect.