It's hard to explain what's been bothering me lately. I've known I was aromantic for a while, and thought I was okay with it. It's just annoying when people don't understand, or I have to be careful not to give someone the impression I can do more than I'm actually capable of. That last bit is even harder when I often have trouble reading people or understanding what their motivations are.

But recently I've wondered if it's "worse" than that. Other people seem to form close relationships faster than I can. They describe friendships and other relationships in ways that are unfamiliar to me. It makes me wonder if I've ever actually been close to someone in the way that other people feel, and I can't say for sure that I have.

This is...upsetting. Am I more broken than I thought? Am I missing a wide range of human experiences? Are the people who care about me throwing their affection into a black hole that can never properly reciprocate?

I've thought about this for a few weeks and I don't have good answers. I don't even know why I'm like this. It could be trans stuff making me uncomfortable with myself for so long, or RSD from ADHD making me terrified to get close to people, or something else. And maybe this is only bothering me now because of 4 months of isolation. I don't even know what a resolution would be. Is this something fixable?

I don't expect anyone to read all this really, or understand where I'm coming from. Just needed to get it down somewhere, I guess. And I don't want my friends to think this means I don't care about them. I do, a lot, just in a weird, broken way that's hard to describe.