You know that feeling when you’re in a crowd, and you’re just standing there thinking, “How did I get here? I don’t belong here.” Yeah, I’ve had that. For a while, I felt like I was in a phase where I was in a completely different world. Not literally—don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been abducted by aliens (yet). But I did go through a period in my life where I thought I was one of them. Alien, I mean.
We’re talking about the kind of alienation that goes beyond just feeling like a stranger in your own skin. This was more of a mental alienation. I’m talking about when I went through what I’ve now affectionately coined the “Till Alien Stage.”
The “Till Alien Stage”: A World Apart
Okay, to really get this, you need to know a bit about my life before the whole “alien” thing kicked in. Before I hit this weird “alien” stage, I had a pretty average life. Friends? Check. A job? Yep. The obligatory post-work pizza and Netflix sessions? You bet.
But somewhere along the way, I started feeling… off. Like something was missing. Not in a “my socks don’t match” kind of way, but more like “Why does everyone seem to get it, and I don’t?”
Eventually, it hit me: Maybe I wasn’t human. Maybe I had crossed over into a different realm—a place where nothing quite clicked anymore. That’s when I thought I was in the “Till Alien Stage.” The moment when I realized, “Hey, maybe this is the phase before I discover I’m actually an extraterrestrial.”
The First Signs: A Subtle Shift
One night, I was sitting on my couch, eating cold pizza (yeah, I do that), when I realized that something felt… disconnected. Not from the pizza. I mean from everything else.
It’s like this weird fog settled over me. Everyone around me seemed to have figured out how life worked. But for me? It was as if I was reading instructions in a language I didn’t quite understand. And I didn’t even know how I ended up in the middle of it all. I started noticing things like, “Huh, everyone at work seems to get along so easily, and I’m over here pretending to care about whatever nonsense Susan from accounting just said about her dog, Baxter.”
Fast forward a few weeks of feeling that way, and I was convinced I wasn’t one of them. One night, I found myself staring into my reflection, thinking, “Okay, I know I am me, but am I really… me? Or am I just here to observe the human experience?”
The Alienation Hits: “I’M Not Human”
I remember this one specific afternoon. I had gone to lunch with a few friends (the ones who never fail to be way more emotionally in tune than I am). We were having a conversation, and everything they said felt so… alien to me. Like they were speaking in a language I should have understood by now, but didn’t.
I nodded. I smiled. I asked the obligatory questions. But inside? My brain was like, “Wait, no, this isn’t real. Is this real? How do they do this? How do they know how to be… people?”
By the time I left the lunch, I was convinced I was in the “Till Alien Stage.” I wasn’t like everyone else. I couldn’t just flow through conversations or make small talk. I wasn’t like them. And it wasn’t until this very moment I realized: this is what alien feels like.
My World Felt Fuzzy
Let’s be real here for a sec. When you start feeling like the world around you isn’t your world, it’s not just an emotional shift. It’s like… your brain does this full-on 180, and suddenly you’re watching yourself live your life like it’s a reality show.
I’d walk through the grocery store, and nothing felt familiar. The shelves? Foreign. The people? Who were these people? It’s like everything I’d known was wrapped up in a bubble that I couldn’t pop.
It wasn’t really a “depressed” feeling. I wasn’t sad about it. I was just, well, detached. As if I wasn’t part of the human race anymore. This feeling of alienation seeped into everything. Conversations didn’t feel real. Everyday activities felt staged. And don’t even get me started on the time I tried to join a Zoom call while cooking. How did people do this? The “normal” life, the connections—it was all too much to grasp.
The Realization: I Was Different
Here’s the kicker: after what felt like weeks of spiraling in my own head, I suddenly realized something.
Maybe being an “alien” wasn’t such a bad thing.
If I was really going to experience life from this outsider perspective, maybe I should start embracing it. Sure, I didn’t understand what everyone else was talking about, but maybe that was my ticket to seeing the world in a different light. I could either keep trying to fit in and feel miserable, or I could lean into the alien experience.
So I did what any reasonable “alien” would do. I threw myself into it. Not in a “I’m going to start speaking in alien tongues” kind of way, but in a “let’s see what happens when I truly look at things through a different lens” kind of way.
Alien Thinking: It Wasn’T That Bad, Actually
Okay, this is where it gets interesting. The deeper I went into my “alien thinking,” the more I started to see things differently. And not just in a “I think the sky is blue because I’m in another dimension” way.
I started noticing that people’s behavior, actions, and words didn’t just look different—they made sense. Sure, I was detached emotionally, but I also started to understand things at a deeper level. How they responded, why they reacted the way they did—it was like I was decoding the human experience.
This “alien thinking” thing wasn’t just about observing; it was about understanding. It wasn’t about feeling disconnected; it was about figuring out why I felt that way. It was about diving into this experience as a learning opportunity. And while it felt like a weird phase, I came to realize that it wasn’t as bad as I’d made it out to be. In fact, it was pretty cool.
A Weird Kind Of Growth
The “Till Alien Stage” wasn’t about fitting in. It was about growing into a version of myself that wasn’t afraid to be apart from the pack. As I embraced this stage, I started to feel more comfortable with myself. The alienation turned into an opportunity for growth. Not just mentally but emotionally too.
The world didn’t suddenly make sense, but I learned how to live in it as I was. There was something almost liberating about it. I started viewing people and situations with more compassion—not because I felt the same way, but because I understood why they felt the way they did.
My Alien Relationships: Learning To Connect
By the time I emerged from the “Till Alien Stage,” I had learned a hell of a lot about myself and my relationships. Did I come out of it with a better understanding of people? Sure. Did I finally connect emotionally? Yeah, but not in the way I thought I would.
Fast forward to today, and I’m still me. I’m not some alien hybrid, but I have a new appreciation for the world around me. I’ve got more empathy, more understanding—and way better conversation skills (finally). The “alien” stage didn’t last forever, but it gave me the chance to see things from a new perspective, and honestly? I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
