Have you ever felt so sad because other people are happy?
Not because you are not happy for them but because your own happiness has left you long before you learned about the happiness of the people around you.
Have you ever felt so mad because other people are in love?
Not because you don't want them to be in love but because love itself has left you long before you learned about the love other people have for others around you.
People feel that way sometimes but it doesn't mean they are miserly, or bitter or antisocial. People feel that way sometimes because they can't help comparing themselves to others. And others will make them feel miserable while the others themselves are more miserable for posing an image of a happy life in this world full of pretense.
I guess, the difference between pretense and jealousy is in the amount of envy; the amount of our desire for something we can't have. Now prove me wrong.
No reason except experience. Sooner or later, everyone walked out. Or they fell through a crack on the floor. Or they were pulled screaming down into the crack, unable to hold fast, gone. Given enough time you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the conviction for reflection, even a kind of freedom. Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, the tranquility that you called "peace".
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