Does anybody else feel like the people on TV are your "us," your family? (re: Parasocial Interactions)

Ever since I was little, including right now, I watch live TV all day and feel like I'm part of an "us" — the group of people watching the show. It's closest thing I have to friends or a family.

When I was little, I used to cry when the station went off the air.

Now I'm supposed to be a grownup, so when the news network I watch goes off the air at midnight, I feel like I'm all alone in the unheated dark studio, trying to sleep on the tile floor with no pillow. All my friends went  home to their husbands and families and forgot all about the news. They took off their clothes in front of another person who trusts them.

The only other time I felt part of something was in the dorm on campus. Everybody cared about everybody else. You're with your friends. No one hated  anybody for being weird or gay or fat or crazy or smart, or any of the other things they hate people for now.

But here in The Future, I'm only part of an "us" during the day. At night, everyone else goes away and sleeps naked next to someone they love. I feel like Barnabas the vampire, chained in a casket buried alone for eternity.

More