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"I don’t know if I should trust my own judgement right now, because I can’t tell if I’m just being lonely and desperate or if I actually want/feel something. How can you tell if you’re just stupidly lonely?"

- Question submitted by Anonymous

Dannielle Says:

OKAY HEAR ME OUT… loneliness and desperation are real feelings of want. So, you sort of answered your own question.

I mean, if you’re about to engage in some emotional, romantic, or sexual activity with another person, be honest with them about your confusions. Saying “Hey, I’m not sure where I’m at right now, I don’t know if I want a relationship or I just want to spend time with someone, and I don’t want to lead you on, but I love being around you” can be pretty easy. It’s much easier than stringing that person along or trying to fake some feels you don’t have.

AND if you’re thinking of trying to find  a person to cuddle, not knowing if you REALLY want a human to share your life with… THAT IS ALSO OKAY.

You will only know the answer to this question if you seek out the answer to this question. You have to try it out, try meeting people, try getting involved with people, try cuddling, try whatever. Try the things you THINK you want, in order to figure out what you ACTUALLY want.

is this bad advice? kristin, halp.

Kristin Says:

No, you did good Dannielle.

I can still halp tho. Let me tell you a story. A million years ago (read: 5 years) when I started dating my now-wife, she was all, “Hey just FYI I don’t want to date.”

Then we dated for four years and then we got married.

The End.

The point of that story is to tell you that our judgement is really, really tricky sometimes, and that being honest with your boo(s) about what you want and need is totally cool, just like Dannielle said… and also doesn’t foreclose the possibility of things changing in the future.

ADDITIONAL ITEM: If you are with someone and you realize every time they make Hot Pockets for dinner you are miserable and you hate watching re-runs of Jeopardy and when you make out you’re thinking about whether or not you need to buy cat litter, but YOU JUST WANT SOMEONE AROUND, get tf out of there and stop it. That’s not fair to anyone and you are wasting good Hot Pockets. If you are all butterflies sometimes and confused other times and unsure… welcome to dating, and take the above advice about being honest and flexible with your feels.

<3

***

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02.25.2015
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"Have you ever felt really small and like nothing you do will ever matter?"

- Question submitted by Anonymous

Dannielle Says:

The short answer is yes.

The medium answer is we are (as human beings) the tiniest blip on the map of the universe and technically we DON’T REALLY MATTER AT ALL.

The long answer is very personal to me. A while ago I got really down on myself. I was in a relationship that made me feel dumb and uncool, we were running into a thousand snafoos at everyoneisgay, I was having family issues, and I felt completely unsettled. I was texting with a friend of mine who was like “dude, you’re doing good for the world and that’s the entire point.” Here I was, feeling like I didn’t matter, feeling small, feeling like no matter how hard I tried I DEF wasn’t good enough, and I wasn’t even capable of recognizing the bigger picture.

I hate to just spit out “we are all connected,” but it’s true. Think about the environment and how shit works. We all need each other to survive. Humans can’t live without food and oxygen, food and oxygen don’t exist without plants and animals, plants and animals don’t exist without sun and water, etc. That’s a dramatically simple way of stating it, BUT the point is we all have our place and our purpose whether you believe in “having a purpose” or not. The goal here is to leave the world a little better than how you found it, whether it’s working to better the environment, working with struggling youth, rescuing animals, making someone laugh, teaching your friend how to knit, or raising a kid with a strong head on their shoulders. Who cares how you do it, just try to do SOMETHING positive at SOME point, because we are all in this together. Whether or not you want to get into it, that’s all it is. One earth, y’all (sort of, things are confusing bc #cosmos). We essentially share a giant apartment and all have to work to NOT be the asshole roommate. You aren’t small and you do matter. Regardless of how you SLICE IT, you’re here, so you matter.

Kristin Says:

I think that this question and answer embody one of the biggest struggles that nearly every human faces in their lifetime. We know, on some level, that everything we do infinitely huge and microscopically small all at the same exact moment. It is absolutely bonkers. And absolutely terrifying. And absolutely beautiful.

Yes, to answer your specific question, I have felt really small and like nothing I do will ever matter. I have felt that way, if only temporarily, in every phase of my life — and that includes this phase of being my 33-year-old self. The fact that I still feel this way on occasion is something that is interesting to me, and might be interesting to you as well. I know on some level that I am making a difference. I know that these words reach people and inform choices and actions that I will never know about, and go on to continue to inform things… probably even after I am not here any more. I know that Everyone Is Gay is helping continue a conversation that is essential to human equality and kindness. And yet. I still have plenty of days and weeks where I don’t know what I’m doing, or why I’m doing it… and where I feel so small that I could just cry for days.

That be interesting to you (as it is to me) because the fact that I know I am changing things on a large scale while simultaneously feeling incredibly small dismantles the fear that feeling small means we are small. Or, perhaps, it just proves that no matter how ‘small’ we may actually be, our power is infinite.

You know how ants can carry like one gabillion times their body weight? I feel like humans can do that same thing, except instead of it being a gabillion pounds of food for our families, it’s actually a gabillion pounds of moving, breathing, living change.

So… yes, we feel small, too. All of us.
And, despite that, the things we do — the things each and every one of us do — are impactful and important in ways that we never be able to fully comprehend.

05.28.2014
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"How do you deal with loneliness?"

- Question submitted by Anonymous

Dannielle Says:

I think there are a few kinds of loneliness. There is physical loneliness, where you’re totally fine most of the time but GOOD LORD do you want someone to cuddle. There is the kind of loneliness based on a previous codependency, where doing shit alone just FEELS WEIRD BC NO ONE GETS IT. And then there is I-Don’t-Love-Me-Most-Of-All loneliness.

The last one is the hardest to deal with and, in my opinion, the easiest to slowly fix. When you don’t think you’re the best thing on earth, you have a hard time being with just yourself. I spent a lot of my life like that, I would fill every possible second with a hang out sesh because being around people was the thing that made me feel good. I didn’t feel good when I was alone. WHICH YOU GUYS TURNS OUT means I wasn’t actually feeling good when I was around other people, I was just distracted.

I did a lot of reading. I read a lot of those self-fulfilling books about success and passion and finding what moves you and your inner beauty, etc. I did a lot of walking around by myself and noticing tiny things like flowers and puppies and cool buildings. I did a lot of writing. I have about 20billion half-written essays, short stories, and even the beginning of a young adult novel about the end of the world (NBD). I spent hours getting to know me and why I am awesome. I have so many amazing things to offer the world and I recognize that now, which makes being alone with me a lot more fun and interesting.

It’s a hard process, learning to love yourself. You have to get rid of those moments when you think you’re less than. Stop comparing yourself to others because you will never be someone else. You are you. The greatest most amazing you. The only you. The fucking coolest you. As soon as you figure that out for yourself, all the kinds of loneliness will be a helluva lot more manageable.

Kristin Says:

She’s right. Not a big surprise, I know, because Dannielle tends to be right a whole bunch, but still. Loneliness is an inside-to-outside feeling. It starts on the inside, and most of us do the only thing we know how: we take the feeling and we say, “If I just had (fill in the blank), then this feeling would go away.”

Now, that doesn’t take away the validity of needing and wanting things like having someone to hold you, or having someone to go grocery shopping with you, or having someone who is there to see that your cat just fell backward off the headboard like a total goon. Those moments of wanting human companionship are real, and true. Many of us want that companionship, and want someone to be there to witness our lives with us.

That said, you have to remind yourself that you have time. You likely have a lot of minutes, a lot of hours, and a lot of years to walk around this planet. You are going to have times where you are with someone you love, and feel lonelier than you ever imagined possible, and other times when you are totally alone and feel full of joy at how non-alone you are. You’ll have times where you have someone beside you and you feel safe. You’ll have times where you are alone, and you feel horribly lonely. None of these experiences negate the possibility of others. Your feelings do not mean that you can’t ever feel another way, and they don’t mean that the only way you will feel differently is to have a specific thing that you imagine will be the “fix.”

Trust in the possibility that life can surprise you.
Trust in the possibility that you may find solace in ways you can’t yet imagine.
Trust in the possibility of finding what you are after, and trust that this world often gives us things in an order we didn’t anticipate.

It’s okay to feel lonely. Just don’t give up hope, and don’t focus on only one “solution” to your problem. This is a very, very big world. Take risks, surprise yourself, have patience, and remember that loneliness takes many forms and is never permanent. Hell, none of this is.

xx

02.7.2014
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"Getting used to college is HARD. I feel so lonely and sad, I miss my friends and family, and I’m scared of the future. How can I loosen up and enjoy myself, without worrying so much and always feeling on the brink of tears??? Your guidance is much appreciated…"

- Question submitted by Anonymous

Dannielle Says:

I wish I had one million pieces of good advice, but the fact of the matter is, it just sucks for a while. Going to college, moving to a new city, being single for the first time, starting a new job, any huge change like this requires time, space, and a ton of deep breathing.

You guys, I’m gonna get real for a second. I just moved to Los Angeles, and it’s a weird adjustment. It has been, in all honesty, the easiest transition I’ve made (I move a lot). I feel great career wise, I love the city, I feel like I fit here, I love my apartment, and I have some amazing people here. I mean incredible people, good friends, I’ve made new friends, I have a routine, I feel awesome. But fuck if I’m not more lonely than I’ve ever been in my life.

I don’t know why. I can’t explain it. On the one hand, I feel so happy and so lucky and so excited. On the other hand, I feel so sad, and scared and alone. I feel like my best friend in the entire world is thousands of miles away. I feel like my business partner, who quite literally owns half of my entire heart sounds even farther away on the phone. I feel like I want to flop on my roommate’s bed and talk about our stupid girl troubles. I just feel small. What’s more, I feel like there’s no one I can talk to, like, no one gets it. I feel like if I were in my apartment with a broken heart, laying on my floor, crying, I wouldn’t know who to call. I feel overwhelmed and crazy. I wish I knew how to fix it, but I just don’t.  I’m really trying too, I swear I am, I’m just not there yet.

But I will, just like you will. We will get there. It will take time and patience and pushing through and we will have to be strong as fuck, but we will get there.

Kristin Says:

You guyyyyys. Dannielle just made me cry EVERYONE COME HUG ME AND DON’T EVER FEEL LONELY.

Phewf.

In all seriousness, and like Dannielle pretty much communicated, there is no instant fix for making the transition to new surroundings, new people, new everything. Missing is a very powerful emotion, and it’s the kind of thing that feeds into itself — you miss your family and friends and feel sad and they aren’t there to comfort you so you miss them more and it just grows and sits heavy in your heart. It’s hard.

However, it is an integral part of moving into a new phase in your life, and other things are also possible (and probable). Know that you can miss your home and the people you love. That missing will start strong and raw, and come in long bursts of sad. It will start to shift over time though, and get a little softer, leave you a little sooner. As that happens, you’ll start to see things around you in a bit of a different light, or you will just begin to start to see the things you didn’t see at all before.

As for your future, specifically… well, of course you will wonder and worry, but I can tell you one thing certainly: not one single ounce of planning or worrying or forecasting would have ever led me to where I am today. I’ve had dozens of jobs and experiences since that very first semester at college, and the thing that I pulled most on was the resiliency that I learned from being away from my home — from being on my own.

I think that the only answer here is to push forward as much as you can, and to be patient, and to give things a chance. Feel that missing, feel a bit of worry, but go to parties, introduce yourself to hall mates, join a club or two, and stick it out for at least a year before making your final assessment. So, so much can happen in that space of time.

<3<3<3

09.23.2013
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