Over the past few years (well, several really, but more acutely in recent years), I have been getting a general sense that I no longer "fit" anywhere, socially. I used to feel at home among software developers or goths, and I felt like I was welcomed by them. These days, I don't know many software developers, much less those who do anything even vaguely resembling my specialization, and the goth crowd is starting to feel oddly alien or even hostile to me.

I am not sure how much of this is real or a change from before, but I definitely feel it in the back of my mind. I feel as though, maybe 15-20 years ago, I would see people with more regularity and I at least felt as though they liked seeing me. These days, gatherings happen less often and I feel as though I am merely tolerated when I attend.

This has led to a broader fear that I need to be careful not to offend the narrowing sensibilities of those in my midst. I try to keep quiet, thus I feel like there is less and less of me there. I haven't felt truly welcome or desired in these spaces in many years (some time before Covid, at least).

This dovetails into a concern I have with language being increasingly politicized. I have a very hard time dealing with this and I get visibly flustered when I am having a conversation and suddenly a reference to someone else remakes the structure of the language into confusing nonsense just to entertain an infantile need of someone not even present to feel "interesting". It makes me perceive the conversation not as good-faith communication of ideas but an empty performative dance. If this were just a person I didn't like, I could easily walk away, but this has become a language concept which can still force its way into my space through a level of indirection. The strangest part is that I typically don't dislike any of the people involved in this dynamic, only this linguistic effect.

All of this is making me feel like I really don't belong anywhere, anymore.

While I never liked existence, I at least used to feel like I had a place and a use in the world. Now, however, I am reduced to waiting out the clock,
...Nights