In a crowd. Alone.

Sometimes I feel so lonely...even when I am sitting in the middle of 5 people. It feels so strange as to how alone and frustrated one can be if one is not in the right company... or when there is no one with whom you can share your thoughts or even someone with whom you can have a light or casual talk. It feels so strange and awkward coming to the office, sitting with your colleagues, hearing them talk, sometimes even enjoying what they are talking about and still not being able to contribute to their talks...or give them a piece of your thoughts, or even pitch in some of your thoughts that could complement their talks.....

Oh God! I don't know if this is making any sense or not...don't even know what I am writing, but just felt like pouring my heart out....From the past few days or I can say a few weeks, I am feeling so lonely and left-out in the office, that I don't feel like sitting in my seat. My whole team seems so alienated or should I say I am an alien to them. They talk about everything sitting around me, share everything and even discuss issue, that are sometimes very interesting, but I am never a part of it....Maybe they think I am not capable of saying something or maybe I am not intelligent enough to be a part of their high-level talks. But I don't know, this is what I am...I cant change myself...though with the passing time I have tried and adjusted to various things, have tried to make myself flexible enough so that nothing bothers me (though I must say that is very difficult). I try very hard to show that nothing matters and I am happy in everything, be it any situation, but thats not the case always...sometimes it hurts!!

I guess all this happens coz I am different from others, or everyone else around me is so different. There is no one whom I can say shares my mindset or my way of living and enjoying life....I mean friends are ok...I mean they are good to a point of going out, having casual talks and all, but when it comes to close friends..there is practically no one in the office. Maybe the time is not right, or maybe all this is a figment of my imagination or maybe I don't want to talk to people, but I don't get it, as to why I feel so bad at times....I guess I don't have that attitude of going out of my way and having conversations with people, I would try once ..twice but not more... I don't or I should say that I can't take a step forward if I feel that the other person is not interested....then I just stop trying...n try to be as normal as possible. ...but sometimes it gets very difficult...

I feel that people don't understand me....frankly speaking I am too complex a person to understand...whats going on in my mind, what I write and then how I behave, everything is very different....no one, not even those close to me can ever know whats going on in my head and what my heart feels. I don't share my thoughts and feelings with people, thats why I guess they find me weired. Everyone loves to talk about themselves, I also do, but I cant...I am not that sort of a person, and I cant really talk much about myself...or should I say there is nothing much to talk about actually....

Why don't people call back?

I was recently swapping text messages with a friend of mine. I had been feeling a bit low and mentioned this in one of the messages. Her response was reassuring: "If you ever feel like talking, I am always there." I felt better for a while before I remembered something - I was sending her text messages because she almost never picked up her phone when I called. Worse, she almost never called back!

Which leads me to something that has always tended to fascinate me - why on earth do so many people not call back, especially when they get calls from those they claim are their friends? I can understand people not responding to text messages, but a call is surely more urgent. I tend to get very nervous when I miss a call from someone I know. My first impulse is: "I hope there's nothing wrong. I hope it wasn't urgent." and my next one is to immediately call back as soon as possible. Quite a few people clearly think differently.

I have no idea why this is so. Yes, we do live in busy times and yes, there are certain circumstances under which one cannot call back. But not calling back when you can well afford to do so is almost criminal. It reflects insensitivity and sometimes even contempt. I wish I had a penny for every time I tried to call a "friend" when I was in a spot of bother only for him/her to not only not pick up the phone, but also not bother calling back.

Mind you, there is a minority that still believes in getting back. One of my oldest friends insists on scrupulously calling back whenever he misses a call from me - he once called me from a sickbed in a hospital and once, bang in the middle of a press conference he was giving, apologising for missing a call because of all the noise! Some may call that overdoing things a bit. I rather like it.

The next time you get a missed call from someone you like, try calling back as soon as possible. They might be in trouble. Or they just might want to talk. Which, come to think of it, is sometimes just as important.