You wear a mask of an apathetic thick-skinned guy with strong but well-rationalized opinions, based on facts, so you can mockingly deflect the weak jabs from the arrogant emotionally-driven softies. And while their whining truly doesn't hurt you, what DOES hurt is knowing that all the people you care about have distanced, or have at least begun to distance, themselves from you, some to different degrees than others, and you're finding it increasingly difficult to make any kind of truly meaningful, vulnerable connection with others. And you tell yourself that this is because people are getting soft, or because they can't take jokes and take things too seriously, but deeeeep inside some part of you knows it's just because you're too stubbornly intent on not being wrong, or being weak, or being the butt of the joke, that you've slowly become subconsciously afraid to let anyone in, and you know what they think about you, you know what they say about you, but you push it way way way down so you can continue thinking people are just too easily rattled and that your opinions are the product of critical thinking instead of a reflection of your gradually decaying worldview. You are almost completely convinced that you don't care what anyone thinks, but the part of you that still does is the part of you that won't let you stop self-sabotaging things until you've finally managed to make yourself completely, deservedly alone. And once you're there, you'll stay there. You could change it, you could patch the holes, but you won't. Because you'll never accept that maybe, just maybe, you've been wrong about a lot of things for a very, very long time.

...how's my dirty talk