Welcome to my middle age crisis

single, lonely, jobless, unshaved

Weirdo girls and boys, now I’m sick, lying in bed, telling you about my middle age crisis.

What’s a middle age crisis? Usually, a middle age crisis is a middle age man who got laid off, and his wife and children ran away. Now he is lonely, sad, ugly, depressed, and has never shaved.

Esther is experiencing similar things. She quit (so it’s better than middle age men), and she doesn’t really have relationship support around her. Luckily, she doesn’t grow a beard and she is still kinda still young and hot, so that made her life slightly happier than a middle age man.

I think you all understand, weirdo friends, when you are in a difficult time in your life, you seek emotional support. Yet, as most of my close friends are no longer in the city, I all of a sudden realized this is my friendship demographic.

Of course, some exaggeration, but you know how depressed people felt

Naturally, with half of the peopl,e you won’t feel comfortable seeking comfort from. But then, I turned around and realized most of the people around me had no availability or capacity. They were usually just too busy with their work, their startup, or whatever they thought they were supposed to do. And then, there are some slightly closer friends who try a bit, and think they’ve finished their friendship responsibility. In the end, you kind of realize you only have like one friend who actually cares about you.

Kinda sucks, right? But based on my understanding, I think I already have quite a lot of friends compared with other working professionals in the city. Maybe America city is just lonely.

Of course, the first reaction to a middle-age crisis is to resent. For middle age man, you will resent picking the wrong wife and your boss, for me, I resent myself and others for not putting enough effort into relationships, resenting picking the wrong people to surround myself with, resenting this transient city where all my best friends have left…

And the second phase of a middle-age crisis is to avoid. Middle age man probably smokes and watches porn. I run away to a different city to seek love from genuinely close friends. And then, sarcastically realizing that the person who tried to pick me up in a bar made me feel more connected, because at least they paid attention to me for a few minutes, rather than all those people around me who just scrolled past me in their background.

And then I just felt lonelier, recognizing that people I thought were my close friends were not really my close friends. If I was in a better mood, I’d think, “well, not close enough.” If I were in a bad mood, I kinda just wanted to delete all of them.

The third phase is called acceptance. The middle-aged man agrees that life just gotta suck. I just accept that this is the season of winter. So I might as well go hibernating (allow myself to live in the Instagram world and watch comedy shows XD). Accepting that people around me are not so helpful, and stopping placing expectations on them too.

Whenever I think I’m unproductive, I say, “Because I’m hibernating.”

The fourth phase, the phase I’m gradually leaning into, is called change. It starts with being more honest. Who are those I really admire but who are unavailable? Who are those who are great at talking but never show up? And who are those I’ve undervalued for a long time?

What do you really desire? For a middle-age man, he’s either gotta get a job or find a new wife (okay, he can beg the old wife too). me, I realized I’ve lost all the drive for my career, and I’m left only with the desire for intimacy as this new version of human being. To achieve this, I do have to figure out my career, so I’ll have the freedom to expose myself to the possibility. And that’s how the middle-age man story begins again.

Okay, I’m gonna begin, but also hibernate a bit more.

FYI: If you have experienced middle age crisis, pls enlighten me more.