i just cant figure out what's wrong with me like im 31 already right you'd think i'd have a handle on basic social interaction by now but apparently not. i'm still doing the whole apprentice thing at the garage which is fine it's good money good skills building toward something but man the vibes are just OFF. all the other techs the certified guys they've got this whole ecosystem of inside jokes and little rituals like they all go grab lunch together every day and come back laughing about some stupid thing and im just there you know. on my metal toolbox. eating my sad little tupperware of whatever i meal-prepped. it's not even about the food it's the exclusion. like im physically present im doing the work im learning the torque specs for a new civic's lug nuts but im not PART of it. im an anomaly in their collective. a deviation from the established group dynamic. and it’s not even like they're MEAN. no one's actively shunning me it's just this passive non-inclusion. they'll talk around me not to me. if i try to interject with something relevant about a diagnostic procedure or whatever it's like my voice just gets absorbed into the ambient noise of the bay. like i'm a ghost in my own workspace. and i keep telling myself it's fine it's professional it's just work but then i catch myself watching them laugh and it's this weird ache in my chest like a low-grade chronic pain. it's not sadness exactly more like confusion. like what's the variable i'm missing in this equation. am i emitting some kind of anti-social frequency. is there a specific nonverbal cue i'm failing to transmit or receive. i run through all the possibilities like an engineer troubleshooting a system malfunction. my affect my posture my vocal tone. is it my age. am i too old to be the apprentice. is that it. the worst part is i'm a student too so this is supposed to be the part of my life where i'm like building networks and finding my people and im just... not. i'm alone at the garage i'm alone doing my assignments i'm alone at home. i even got that app the one where you can like meet people based on interests but it just felt so ARTIFICIAL like i was trying to force a connection that just wasn't there. it's this persistent feeling of being on the outside looking in. a perpetual observer. and i keep thinking if i just work harder if i just know MORE about engine control modules or differential fluid types then maybe they'll see me. maybe i'll earn my place. but it feels less like an apprentice thing and more like a fundamental FLAW in my own programming. and i dont even know what to call this feeling. it’s not loneliness exactly. it's something more clinical. like a persistent uncorrected error in my personal algorithm. and i just want to understand what it IS.