Can the consequences of loneliness lead to egoism ?

Surcruxum said:

Wow I can't believe it. You are almost the same as I am.. minus the hygienic part. The thought that you are better than anyone else and everyone else are worthless piece of garbage. In my experience, my loneliness resulted in me couldn't care less about everything and I suddenly have a desire to be stronger and better than anyone else.

Even though the feeling is good for me, deep down I know it's not right. I tried to change little by little, and now I have friends. Not close, but sometimes we hang out together. Back then when I was arrogant, it feels like everyone knows how I feel about them and they stayed away from me. No one would come near me.

To answer your question, loneliness can lead to egotism, but it doesn't apply to everyone. My advice( because I think I'm worse than you, you should try asking a different person) is that try to think positive thoughts. People are friendly towards you when you do the same. And never ever let arrogance get the better of you. Be humble.

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jaguarundi said:

^^^ **sighs**

The trick is not to downgrade yourself to stop yourself from being over-critical of others.

The trick is to love others as you love yourself. And that can be the hardest thing - to actually, truly love yourself.

If you do not truly love and accept yourself, then basically you have no real love to give to anyone. At all.

And that's how you get into all ^ that stuff....

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Rodent said:

I constantly catch myself having degrading thoughts about other people and the only solution to fight this rising elitism or egoism was to beat myself down constantly by rating my own thoughts and actions on a much more rigid scale than I would rate others.

It's strange to scold yourself for all kinds of bad behavior while you're making excuses for everyone else for the same behavior - phrases like "They don't know any better, but you should" or "They were raised up in a different way" cross my mind on a regular basis. Not every action is excusable but this set of mind keeps me from ranting and overcriticizing all day long. I'm not in the position to judge other people's actions - as long as they don't directly interfer with mine at least.

I try to stay down-to-earth to some degree though this whole process of undermining myself is probably unhealthy for my self-esteem in the long run. But I'd rather be this way. I'm afraid of noticing my slow development into some self-rightous elitist prick sitting in a mental ivory tower.

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Zett said:

I'm sorry to hear your social experiences have led this way and judging from the information you've given and also doing a bit of reading on your post history I get the impression that your social experiences are threatening to leave you affected in a negative way.

I'm going to try to point at the root causes of your problems because I don't believe you'll make positive changes just by simply adding a behavior you are not exhibiting naturally.

You need to look at why you think the way you do. Why do you value looking 'handsome' as you say? Is appearance really so important? Making the best of what you got is great but obsessing over it to the point where you would avoid a good friend because of it isn't right. The importance of looks is hard to discard, because in high school and from your social environment it certainly appears that people care about it. The popular kids are usually the ones with good looks but as you get older you realize this is not the case and looks hardly matters in the world of success whether it's financial or social. Look at some of the most successful people of our time and you'll see proof of this. Oprah Winfrey was told she was 'unfit for tv' (due to her appearance) and she proved the tv network wrong. Charisma is defined by strength of character and social skills not by physical appearance.

So ask yourself again is looks really important? If all you're looking forward to is success in life you may want to challenge this internal belief and then find that you were wrong to judge your friend based on their appearance.

The next problem you have is that you've been rejected socially and this has created a hole in your self esteem. You've lost faith in yourself because of what you're experiencing, and I'm going to say it's ok. I've been there too, I've been rejected, bullied etc but you shouldn't be looking for reasons why you're better than the people who rejected you. Not everyone starts as a social butterfly, and with social experience in high school, it's hard to decide how much you really did wrong. Just looking different or thinking different is enough to be discriminated by others in this setting.

So I'm going to try to help you with something important I learned from meeting someone who I thought was amazingly attractive personality wise. She taught me to seek the positives in everything.

And I'll start by telling you the good thing about what you experienced now is that it forced you to re-evaluate your situation and seek a position of strength. You've been driven to succeed harder because of your plight. This is a rare quality so be proud you developed it. You just need to tweak it so you don't end up worse than you were before.

You're going to want to re-establish social connectivity and on your pursuit I think you'll want to pick up humility and empathy along the way.

To be humble you need to acknowledge that you don't know everything and you certainly don't know why people are the way they are. You'll acknowledge that each and every person has the capacity for heights that you may not reach in different fields of expertise and in knowing so you'll have respect for them and see the qualities that define these people. We're all human, we all have the capacity for greatness in our own unique way.

To learn empathy you need to imagine being in their shoes and adopt their beliefs even if you don't agree with it just to see what it feels like. In doing so you'll understand them better and hopefully treat them with more respect than you did before.

If you equip yourself with these qualities I have no doubt your social experiences will improve and hopefully when you reach university your experiences will change as you self correct and follow a path that isn't negative.

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AnotherLonelyGuy said:

Of course it does.
As a loner, the person you interact most with is yourself. You're the only one caring for yourself, so it is vital to have a good opinion about your own person. That's how you begin judging everyone else and you become harsh towards people with a different behavior than yours. That grows in time until you feel you are an uncrowned king and no one is worthy of you. That also comes with two opposite drives: the one to make money and nothing more (in the process crushing everyone as revenge for leaving you prey to loneliness), or the one to lose interest in everything and become apathetic. Both of these drives are expressions of the Ego which had to be augmented enough to make up for the others ignoring you. By ignoring I mean not having any business with you in a manner that would show they like or love you, that they appreciate your person, not your utility. That they acknowledge your existence.

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