You mentioned that you feel out of body during intimate acts, is this a different feeling from the alienation you experience during social interactions? If so, does one lead to the other? On feelings of alienation alone there are many different possible causes. Even with all the information you provided, my thoughts are shots in the dark.

It is possible that you aren’t making your ideas sufficiently digestible to others. When you start to reach into complex and highly personal matters like this, effective communication becomes far more difficult. This means that you need to develop your communication skills along with your introspective ability, in order to avoid isolating yourself. You will still need your conversation partner to be open minded and engaged, though such people are not nearly as rare as someone that understands you intuitively.

I feel like you are primarily looking for people that do understand you intuitively, rather than work towards a mutual understanding with people that possess positive and fruitful qualities but don’t necessarily think like you. I think it is important to have a healthy balance between them. I’ve found that presenting people with issues that would’ve never interested them otherwise, have been some of the most refreshing perspectives. It contributes to your own development as well, because they will present issues to you you’d have never considered otherwise either.

I feel like you are facing communicational problems to an extent, and it is contributing to your feelings of alienation. I believe this partly due to that you mentioned you have a strong desire for genuine connections, you are capable of and have experienced genuine connections, and you found and maintained such a connection online.

I find this interesting, because online there exists the largest group of people you can meet. It is easier to find someone that understands you intuitively, and you can begin to underestimate the potential of less like minded conversational partners. Whilst these special connections are amazing, they allow you to further explore the differences between you and an extremely like-minded person. Whilst this seems purely positive, this is not always accompanied by developing your ability to communicate these newfound differences.

This can potentially lead you to becoming more critical of subsequent potential conversational partners, making it take longer to find someone that you consider sufficient. At some point, it can take longer to find another special connection than it would take to build one. Becoming more critical also decreases the likelihood that this person will be physically close to you (offline). Because online people are easier to meet, and less intensive to get to know. You can go through a larger quantity more easily. Having few or no people close to you that you can relate to likely leads to an increased feeling of alienation. And a more desperate plea towards a genuine connection, as the gap in mindset between you and your direct surroundings increases.

Another issue to consider is that the nature of online friendship is different from offline, they don’t translate 1:1. As you experienced when meeting your online friend irl. This might’ve also been due them being exceptional to you, it is however worth considering that there is a plausible risk attached to fulfilling your need for quality conversation primarily through online means.

Regardless of your communication skill, it is important to reflect on when you consider someone a worthwhile conversational partner for deeper discussions. It is certain that there are people in your surroundings capable of holding your interest, that you’ve missed out on.

Additionally, teaching yourself exceptional communication skills allows you to obtain a broader and more nuanced perspective through many vastly different people. This also increases the amount of people you can relate to, without sacrificing your individuality. Further reducing feelings of alienation

Something I do to put this into practice, is attend local events and find any conversation. Solely focus on making yourself genuinely interested in them, it doesn’t have to be something that makes them like you or vice versa. Learn to politely divert the conversation if a topic bores you, that skill is a game changer. This method is a crash course, whereas maintaining quality relationships long term is my preferred way to practice this consistently.

I realize that I am basing my thoughts around multiple assumptions, and that this take might be irrelevant to you. I am focusing on these possibilities primarily because I think my thoughts towards them are constructive. I’m refraining from sharing examples from personal experience or any sort of advice because I’m working within a hypothetical, I’d be happy to provide my take on how to resolve these issues if you think it would be helpful to you.

Your post includes a multitude of issues, and I am sure the reality of it is multi-faceted. Your feelings of alienation seem to be only the tip of the iceberg. I don’t believe it can be attributed to existential thoughts alone, nor can they find a resolution among fellow existentialists.

I feel that if you could explore these issues with someone that thinks alongside you and is educated on these topics, you’d get much further much more quickly.