I sat with the usual group of people that I eat lunch or dinner with. All in all, there's near 20 of us, but people sortof alternate.

I was sitting down, eating with them, listening to their conversations, and I was struck by this empty feeling inside me. For as long as I've known alot of these people, I don't know them very well at all. I've always spent most of my time studying, so the most we do is hang out, watch movies, and other socially passive stuff.

There's only one person there I really got to know and, well, she's the only person I'm not on speaking terms with. Anyone who remembers (or cares to look up my dating situations under the "who I am" archive) may remember Miss E. I figure once a person has gone out of their way to do you emotional harm and not care about the reprocusions, you avoid them if at all possible.

What surprises me is that I love her, most of these people. I guess the right words don't come, or I try to distance myself to leave more time for work.

I'm starting to wonder if all the sacrifice is worth it. They do so many interesting things together, like play speed pictionary, blow things up en masse, or just chill. I do this stuff now and again, but I always feel like an outsider.

Saying that I'm a part of anything always feels odd, because I never feel as though I'm connected to anything, like bonds to people and things are just fallen leaves on the wind. We all get that "outside looking in effect," and I'm not saying it doesn't have its advantages...but sometimes I pick my head up and realize that I've shut myself off.

What else can I do? I need to work, I need to excel...not because of some hollow sense of perfection, but because it feels like it needs to be that way...for me to do what I need to do in this life. People suffer for abstract concepts all the time. It bothers me at some times more than others.

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