touch me, take me

"And I say baby, yes I feel stupid to call you, but I'm lonely..."
-Maria Mena, Sorry

"I'm addicted to myself
can't make time for no one else..."
-The Downtown Fiction, Get it Right

I find myself loneliest on the weekends.  I check Facebook and Twitter and all my usual sites and there's usually not much activity from Friday night to Sunday night.  I always assume it's because most people are out and about actually doing stuff.  With other people.  And I sit at home, refreshing every two minutes in a desperate hope for recognition, attention, connection.

I'm usually really good with my loneliness.  When I was younger, I hauled it around like a giant wooden cross on my back but now it's more like a pendent around my neck.  It's always there but much easier to carry.  But there are times when it weighs me down.  It's usually when I'm alone and bored and my mind isn't fixated on some other internal trauma.  The boredom opens a gateway for the dormant longing to come sweeping in again.

Sometimes I want nothing more than to have a good conversation with someone.  But no one seems to be around.  I've even thought about handing out my number and asking people to call me maybe.  The only problem with that particular strategy is I only want to talk to people for as long as I want to talk to them.  I want to fill a void without the obligation of continued conversations.

I fear once I open up certain lines of communication, there's a sense of having to keep them open.  Is it possible to have just one good conversation and leave it at that?

The problem is I don't like talking on the phone.  I never have and don't know if I ever will.  I only ever have small bursts of desire to talk on the phone, and that's really because the ones I want to talk to are the ones I can't see in person and it's the only other choice.  Texting is impersonal and because so many people are so far away, communication by phone is the only happy medium.

But talking on the phone can be frustrating with dropped calls and reception issues.  I have an acquaintance from high school who occasionally calls me and it's always more of a hassle than enjoyable because he always sounds muffled and his words are often lost in static.  Conversation doesn't flow very well.  But when it's my only option, I guess I take what I can get.  I just don't want it most of the time.

I don't want to give someone an intellectual booty call.  Minus the actual booty, of course.  And much like booty calls, I would be using someone, just utilizing their minds instead of their bodies.  I don't want to be that way.  I'd like to be reciprocal when it comes to communication but sometimes I think I just don't have the energy for it.  And that makes me feel selfish, which is the reason why I haven't tried to telephone anyone in the first place.  I don't want to call just to vent or to fill some kind of lonely void and brush them off once I have.

Separation is always slicing through me.  I'm so confused when it comes to people.  I want to like people but sometimes people make it hard for me to like people.  I think I even make it hard for me to like people.  I am a dick a lot of the time.  And I can blame that on the dicks in my own life but there's really no excuse.  I've allowed myself to become so vacant and distant because of a few nasty people and when the desire for human interaction comes barreling through my body, I just try to deal with it because I don't want to unnecessarily hurt anyone like I was hurt.   

I'm stuck in a limbo of lethargy and longing.

Of course, telephone conversations are more practical than a kiss and a cuddle, which is what I really crave when I'm at my loneliest.  I'd love it if I had someone to call up and invite over to stay with me.  But all I have is my extra pillow that I push up against me every night so as to have something filling up the space where someone special should be.  And because I have no physical interaction, I compromise by craving calls.

As I wrote this, I had a realization about romance.  Just like how I'm preoccupied with my image because I know I have the potential to be good-looking, I'm preoccupied with being in a relationship because I have the potential to be an amazing boyfriend.  Despite any hangups I have about people and myself, when you take all of that away, there's actually still a heart filled with love and a boy that wants to give it to someone.  That part of me has dwindled over the years but it's still there, underneath it all.

Naturally, it wouldn't be easy.  As loving as I think I can be, I'm also as jealous and insecure.  What I'm trying to say, though, is when things would be good, they'd be really good.  But I don't want to think about all of that.  I'd just like to have someone to hold.  People have sex buddies.  Can't I have a cuddle buddy?

I need skin on skin therapy.

Or at least someone to call and complain about not getting it.