>now as adults, what happened to you folks?
The main events of my adulthood have been: dropping out of university, attempting suicide, becoming homeless.

Now, 32 years old, I have a place to stay and a job but I am unable to form relationships with other people (platonic or romantic). I don't really speak to my parents besides them calling me once a few months or perhaps on big occasions like a birthday or such. When we exchange words nothing is said, they don't know me, I don't know them, and I doubt I'd ever let them know me because no good ever came of it. They don't know my thoughts, feelings or worries.

>on selflessness
I think the difficulty I have with this is that while I like to believe I am selfless and put others first, when I look closely at my own behaviour it looks like a very shallow, self-serving version of selflessness. I'm not down at the soup kitchen every Thursday doling out ladels of soup. I'll hold doors for people, go out of my way to 'be nice', act polite etc but really it's because I want people to think I'm a good person. I want their affection and their attention. In reality I'm a doormat, someone spineless who fawns over complete strangers because I crave approval and connection so badly that I look for it anywhere, even among people who couldn't give a shit about me and never will.

But if it came to being deeply selfless, as in caring for another person, that's well beyond my capability. Despite my frivolous displays of politeness, at my core I think only of myself. I'm full of self-pity and no amount of holding doors open for people or saying "good morning" but nothing more can ever create a positive image of me in someone else's mind. In the end I occupy this weird limbo land where people simultaneously think I hate them, that I'm afraid of them and yet that I will also go out of my way to accede to them given any opportunity because I let them walk all over me.

I'll kill myself eventually.