That sounds a lot like me. It’s a tough row to ho to be honest; what a lonely life one ends up leading. You follow the rules you do the right things, hell you even get good results but ultimately you end up in the same place no matter what you do, just destined to sit on the sidelines in the game of social life. At points you become bitter, a bit rigid, a little judgmental wondering why so many other people can do so many wrong things while you do everything right; but you try not to let it get to you.
It took a lot of years trying to analyze things before I came to the conclusions I came to about my particular lot in life. I just don’t really bond with other people - it’s not a specific action or something quantifiable, but I know is there for most other people but not for me. I didn’t really have a good home life - my parents hated each other with a sustained passion that has to be quite rare. For the first thirteen years of my life they had knock down drag out fights, I even once saw them spit in each others faces. There was never any physical violence, just seething hatred and deep loathing. My mom cared about me in her own why but had a certain harshness I guess most people would consider unusual - example being I cut my hand when I was ten or eleven and when I came home from the hospital after getting my hand stitched up, all she asked was if I was able to write - she was only concerned that I would get my homework done on time (she had an obsession with me getting into an ivy league school). Not even a thought about having sympathy or empathy seemed to enter her mind.
And so, for the first eighteen or nineteen years of my life, I thought this was all normal, thats all life was - short nasty and brutish. I didn’t realize how life was for other people, how connections with other people gave meaning to their lives until I was much older.