No me gusta.

Why is being single feel so cutthroat?

I have not had a significant other for over 2 and a half years. I’m okay really. I feel like i’ve survived past that desperation point and I kinda like being by myself and that is all I know and relationships completely freak me out because it’s been SO long. Sure there has been a fair bit of grey area this past year, but I can ultimately say I am a table for one or a girl flying solo, whatever.

Then a night like tonight happens. 
I am with friend celebrating her birthday and I step out for a few minutes (because I can and am independent or whatever). I get a water and hangout beside the dance floor. This is when a fellow twenty-something approaches me and starts talking to me. We dance for a bit and end up liking/singing along to the same songs. This is pretty cool considering the music was mostly shit. 
This leads to me dancing with him and being completely aware that everyone I came with was gone. This seems okay to me because I live two blocks away from the bar that I am at, so I stay and end up getting water and talking to him about real stuff.
I feel honest and cute. I talk about being an English major (which he is too), liking sci-fi books (but knowing I need to dig deeper), and growing up on the same 80s music.

If anything all this common ground surely deserved an acknowledgement from him. I mean that sort of stuff doesn’t happen all the time does it? Really i’m asking because I don’t know. I live in my single-person bubble and leave it that way 95% of the time. I thought he’d ask for my number, especially when he seemed so interested that I listen to one specific song about an artist we’d discussed for a while. I thought he’d want an update, to see if I liked it after all.

I’m okay really. I don’t feel a great loss because someone did not ask me for my number, especially when most (all) times i’ve given it out no one has called me to hangout. I guess I just feel so confused about the dating/single life. 
I thought we “hit it off”, and I’m pretty sure he said he was attracted to me, but the last conversation ended so flatly and I turned to walk those two blocks home alone almost completely unfazed by the rejection I faced. Was it even rejection?

Human connections are so misleading and exhausting, I often avoid things like going out dancing because meeting people always feels like an annoying side effect. Meeting people is supposed to be healthy and if you can carry a conversation we’ve all socially accepted this as a good thing. For me though it only causes anxieties and I just feel more alone and want to cocoon back in my apartment… which is what I did when I got home last night and am still doing now. Feels good.