Alcohol is often used to escape your daily life. To make yourself numb, to have a good time. Integrated in our culture it is common to have a beer if you want to have a good time. It disconnects you from the stress of your day to day life and lets you focus on your time now. Last night I was on my way of getting drunk, it takes about two beers for me normally, but yesterday I kept thinking how sober I still was. Maybe because everyone around me was so drunk, or maybe because I wasn’t feeling happier, stress-free or numb. So I drank more, because that is what you are ought to do, and I also wanted to feel the slight buzz. I was standing at this ‘party’ where I didn’t know anyone, besides a few faces that looked vaguely familiar. So, because I did not want to stand in a corner looking at the beer in my hand, I bravely walked towards the familiar faces and started a conversation. They were obviously a lot drunker than I was, which made me feel good. When you are at a party it is always best to not be the drunkest person there. A slight buzz was creeping into my body and I tried to focus on the words that came out of the person in front of me. It was fun at first, we had some things in common and we could extend our conversation beyond the usual small talk, but after a while I started to notice that this guy wanted to talk about drugs more than anything else. I shifted my focus on different people, but even though I am such an extrovert, I am not good at parties. Eventually I had a conversation that sparked my interest, but mid-way conversation I saw eyes shifting their focus behind me, next to my, anywhere but me. To be in a conversation you don’t want to be in is annoying, you start to look around for someone you know and can turn to. To be in a conversation the other person doesn’t want to be in is not annoying, it is quite hurtful. Maybe it was the alcohol that had fuelled my self-doubt, or I was right and the people I find interesting find no interest in me. I went inside, the loud music, ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams, blasted into my ears, that would do my tinnitus no good, by the way. I looked around, had lost all familiar faces and couldn’t really talk to anyone with this music. I walked to the toilet, thinking that I should have never come here alone. I tried to make some conversation at the line for the toilets, -why do girls need to pee so often- but people had their own groups, they did not feel the necessity of talking to strangers. Am I only an extrovert because I cannot be alone? Am I only an extrovert because I am lonely? I went to pee and without saying goodbye to anyone I grabbed my bicycle and went home. Ate some fries before arriving, because my drunken brain told me to do so. Apparently I was drunker than I thought. So I sat outside the place where I got my fries, on chairs that were still wet from the showers of rain earlier today. I looked at the intersection, and suddenly felt disconnected the way alcohol disconnects you. Not the good kind, the lonely kind. I tried not to cry, because the image of crying alone at an intersection in the middle of the night while eating fries was not one I would like to have experienced. So I held back the tears – they weren’t ‘proper’ tears anyway – and cycled home.

When I woke up the next morning, I could still feel traces of the loneliness I had felt the night before, but I put a filter of relativity over last night and felt alright again. The feeling of loneliness among a crowd has often been described the loneliest of all. It is strange how such an intense feeling can just float away after some time. Humans can stand through almost anything, if you give it time. I don’t mean this in a cliché kind of way, as in ‘time heals you’, obviously that is not true. You need to work on yourself if you feel insecure or depressed or anything permanent. But feelings are good at putting on a mask and often feel very permanent, when they aren’t really. The loneliness I felt yesterday made me feel as if I would be alone forever, it let me spiral into thoughts that seem like conspiracy theories now. When I woke up this morning, I still felt a little sad, and a little alone and waking up in my bed without anyone next to me did not help necessarily, but I also felt silly for feeling so lonely. I felt dumb that I let my insecurities ruin my good mood for the evening. And even though eating those fries yesterday evening is still something I am not particularly proud of, I also know that the seven hours of sleep I got, made all that feel very far away.