This is not a suicide note, unless the dumb sounding "passive suicide ideation" warrants one. For well over 4 years now, I've been stuck in a hermitry spiral (or a funnel.) I have a job where I get more people messaging me on Teams in the span of 5 minutes than in my private life for the past decade or so. The people I talk to in the office are one of the only physical interactions I get on a daily basis, save for a haircut visit every few months, grocery shopping, or sporadic gatherings with my parents. The job is an exhausting 9-to-5, but my low determination and not-so-special skillset leaves me no other option when it comes to income sources. It's enough that I had been jobless for well over a year before getting a contract there. I never was particularly fond of many things in life, quickly losing trust towards anyone with similar interests after I learned that people like the same things for extremely different reasons. It's quite an easy conclusion to make: I would rather get along with someone on behalf of shared dislikes. But, me being generally not into people, either contradicts itself if I ever tried to be friends with most, or leave the other person under the unyielding pressure of not only self-loathing, but also loathing of mine. If you met me, you wouldn't see a harrowing or a bitter person; quite the contrary, my awareness of my innate outward disdain made me grow a gentle, albeit distant exterior. I will most likely smile back at you if you ever needed, for any reason, your happy grimace reflected in my face. I will give you back my claimed public transit seat if you ask kindly enough, and generally bite my tongue or look the other way if you, inevitably, annoy me. So, naturally, whenever one gets closer, is where the exterior loses its ease. I can only keep biting my tongue so much until I need to yelp slightly, to comment on your (whose, really?) mediocre choice of words, a repeated unfunny learned trick, a recoil-worthy opinion, a choice of self-representation so boring, I'd rather punch you (who again?) in the face to give you a more interesting fashion statement. So on and so forth. But, obviously, I know this leads me nowhere but back inwards (although it does anyway,) and so I learn to reply with a "this is not my thing," a "to each their own," and a round of "that's cool"'s. I will even try to share a peek of my stale venom so you (…) do not feel like I cushion the dialogue too much. But I won't try to voice any of it, really, as my disagreement is not even word-based, else I would grunt at you like a volatile primate and so I simply envision caving your head in with no intent to enact any violence, as this sort of de(con)struction would yield more misrepresentation of my feeling rather than my curated restraint of representation. In fact, and you know it, I am not even of posture to threaten you more than a curiously combative chihuahua if I ever got stupid enough to think any of this would be a good idea to try out. So what do I actually like? I guess my daily hobby is listening to music, daydreaming, being bored and trying to prove myself wrong. Although I enjoy art, my enjoyment of it decays as I grow more and more suspicious of the intents of every artist behind sharing their body of work. What really drew, say, Hugo Distler (of whom I know very little, really) to publish his work before coming to the conclusion that putting his head into an oven appeared as priority for him? And why would the reason for it be of import when I could disillusion myself that while the reason was different, my priority was the same? What is my real enjoyment of impressively produced modern dance music in light of its reliance on its revolting short form marketing, the comically unfit for my habits community aspect, or its indulgence in easy solutions to problems it faces—be it irrational avoidance of broader inspiration, utilizing AI generated images, chord progression parasitism, quick releases and streaming service reliance to keep an image of relevancy for booking agents and fan interaction? Of course this is an incredibly specific example, but I chose to describe it as I just cannot entirely trust music I like if it was most likely made by a person I'd loathe; although I keep my white of the eye on the details that would deter me from it even more, and continue to listen to it, especially if I feel like I'm able to ignore it in the given moment. And, of course, this goes on to other forms of hobbies—and while I do not feel the need to intellectualize my aversion to traveling, hiking, sports, or books; I definitely cannot say the same about film (which I would gladly put in the same list,) which is the ultimate product of a community, however flawed or friendly, which goes against my already-implied disproval of hierarchy and group think. Of course, I can appreciate a beautiful shot, an intelligent formal trick, an amusing use of film language to represent something more than words can, but ultimately I feel deceived each time I'm reminded that it was made by someone who I would not like to talk to in person, or even woud like to know about. Perhaps this is why a live town square cam, while not as attention-hijacking, or an ephemeral tram ad I can easily appropriate in my head might inevitably become more treasured than a group of people playing with light-capturing apparati to help visualize a statement that they might not even believe in. It brings me no joy, in the standard sense of the word, to voice my discontent about things that are not even made to be pried into with such scrutiny. In fact, I struggle to even edit this text without reminding myself I don't even like writing or books, unless I'm able to ridicule them without giving off the impression of a particularly cranky or depressed know-it-all. I have loved someone very dearly in my life, for almost a decade now, although I am no longer in the position to share this opinion with that same person for the very "well over 4 years" I mentioned before. I would like to move on, but believe me when I say this, I would be deceitful if I ever tried. I am as content with living alone as it's currently possible for me, but even though I do not long for adventure or new dialogues, I feel troubled by living alone, just as I could be content with eating junk food or smoking cigarettes while knowing it would be bad for my body. It would be easy to assume I love a perfect image of this person in my head, but that is not the case. I feel a lot of hurt caused by them and myself, and can see their fault just as well as I see mine. The proximity was comforting as no dopamine hit can ever be, and its plainness and my doneness (that were the reason of them chosing to leave me) were the exact source of my happiness and readiness to die, happy. As long as I'm not done, not understood closely, and not held dearly, I'm not happy. If I'm ever done again, I will be twice, finally, as such.