Right in Front of My Eyes
I finally felt what loneliness is.
I see a lot of reels about living abroad (as a student or something), and how it means you also get stress, and loneliness attacks.
Pushing People Away
After the CERN internship—I mean, the internship was great, the best thing ever in my life—right after that, I had to rush everything. I had to start my thesis, get housing administration, revising papers (that I delayed since during internship), basically catching up on everything, even skipping writing paper to a conference in favor of finishing thesis. And at those times, it was really depressing.
Right after the internship, I had to move to a new apartment. I lived in the apartment doing administration work and stuff. And this friend of mine kind of had a problem with his old apartment, so he had to live here, meaning that we would interact every day. And the other friend also just loves to hangout. Of course, it’s common things among friends.
During that time, I was busy with everything. Literally everything. I was busy with the thesis and all the stuff, and I tried to push people away. Like: “No man, I don’t have time to hang out. I have tasks to do, I have stuff to do.”
A few days, maybe a week, before the event, these two friends of mine happened to know another person whom I also knew from a year ago. They finally got to know each other, kind of seeing the connection between them. Long story short, because I also knew them, we had this kind of dinner party. I don’t know if it’s called a dinner party—we just came there, brought some food, cooked it, and ate together. And it was great. It felt great.
The Event
A few days later, the Indonesian community here held an event, and I happened to be the organizer, though I didn’t do a lot of work. And during that event, I did nothing. I didn’t enjoy a single thing. I was physically being there, but I felt left alone. I didn’t interact with anybody, nor did anybody interact with me.
After that event, I felt really, really lonely. I felt very empty. I even asked Claude: “How to fight this loneliness? Is this normal or something?”
During that event as well, this friend of mine who had the problem with his old apartment also lost his wallet. Because he lost his wallet, he transferred all his money to my account so that he could withdraw it from the ATM.
Reconnecting
The next day, he said: “I want to take the money, can you come to my house?” I said: “Yeah, okay, I’ll come.” Just because I felt bad, and during that time I was still really, really stressed out about this thesis.
When I came to his house, he called this other friend—our friend: “We have this food, we have this fish, an abundance of fish. Let’s cook it and eat it together.”
And boy, oh man, I felt so grateful. Like, I had just suffered from this feeling of loneliness. And we met again, had talks, hung out, and everything. It was really great.
It just made me realize that these are genuine people.
Right in Front of My Eyes
I mean, I’ve known this friend, this guy(s), for two years, like since I came here to Türkiye. But I never really initiated hangouts or something that feels like friends hanging out—like bonding, like keeping the relationship strong.
I know it doesn’t have to be forced. If it’s a real connection, then it doesn’t have to be that way. But I didn’t really put any effort into that. And I didn’t want to. Either I was pushing them away, or I was pushing myself away from them. I kept making excuses that I have a lot of shit to do, a lot of stuff to do, that I don’t have time to hang out with friends.
It turns out these are the two guys, the two real friends I have in here. They have been in front of me for two years. And I’m asking myself: “Why am I feeling lonely? I could just come over to their house and hangout.”
And now my time is up. I mean, not yet—up in like 8 months, and I’m going to leave this country for good. Right now, I would do anything, anything, to hang out with them again.
It’s just that it made me realize that the thing that I’ve been looking for is right in front of my eyes.
And that is all I need, actually.