Survey: Do you feel loved?

Written on March 22, 2026

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Table of Contents

• Prologue
• Results
• Events
• Professional Ragebaiter
• Epilogue

Prologue

The sign was originally going to be “do you feel like God loves you?” Because I rarely do, and I was going to do it outside St. Peter’s again. The only time I feel like he does is when I’m first waking up in the morning under warm, soft, cozy blankets and my mind is blank. I did do this survey outside St. Peter’s but I made it more generic in case I wanted to do it elsewhere.

One or two priests have said I shouldn’t work on Sundays and should find something else to do, like a hobby or helping at a soup kitchen, but I think this counts as one of the seven spiritual works of mercy, which are allowed today.

Results

Rough tally counts:

Most of the Catholics coming out of Mass didn’t see my sign, because an older man with a foreign accent, who came out early and stopped to talk with me, stood right in front of it and talked at me for about 5 whole minutes. He was very nice though, and oblivious, and supportive.

I got about 5 or 10 answers there, in Often or Usually. One of them was that same young woman I briefly mentioned a few weeks ago. She’s too young for me, she’s gotta be like 25 at most. Two of them were the homeless people outside the church. The security people didn’t come out and shoo me away today, which was nice.

Since I had nothing better to do today, I went to continue the survey at my normal spot at State and Randolph.

Most people put Usually or Often. I feel like there’s selection bias again. People who feel Rarely or Never are probably not walking around Chicago, or if they are they’re probably not looking at random signs, or if they are they probably aren’t in the mood to participate.

I didn’t put Always as the last option like I was about to, because I felt like people in a really good mood would put it down, even if it’s not realistic. I think that was a mistake. They probably just put Usually down anyway, which just watered down the meaning of Usually.

Very early on someone asked why there wasn’t an always category, I said I don’t think it’s true for anyone that they feel loved 24/7/365. He said he would have put always if it was there. About 5 or 7 people said they would put always if it was there and put Usually since it wasn’t. Around 5pm or so, someone I’ve talked with a few times came and did the survey and asked if she could put always, and I said I wouldn’t stop her. After her a few people added theirs to it.

One young man said that a lot of people love the idea of him that they have in their head, but not him per se.

One friendly woman I’d never seen before asked me what my answer was and I said Rarely, and she said something nice that I don’t remember and asked if I wanted a hug which I accepted. The hug felt rather meaningless and empty, a mere statement about her extroversion and compassion, and not at all a reflection of my actual worth.

Two people who put Never were with friends or family, and still said yeah they were serious. One young man asked if the people who put Never looked sad or were just joking around and I said yeah they looked sad and seemed serious about it.

One group of three black friends all put Rarely. I found it odd because they seemed so friendly with each other, so full of comradery, so I assumed they all felt like the others loved them. I guess not though? That was so odd.

A few people asked if there was a Sometimes, and I had to explain that Often is meant to be somewhere between Rarely and Usually but I couldn’t think of a better word. So they all put Often, except one person drew a tally between Often and Usually, and another person called out Sometimes and I drew a tally next to that one for them. In retrospect, I think Sometimes probably means Rarely.

A large Ukrainian or something man came by and did his answer and asked for my answer and I said Rarely and he gave me a fist bump and then said something like “I love you bro” and walked away. I can’t describe how it went down that well in words, but just know that in person, it was one of the coolest things ever, not even a little weird. He was just that guy.

I saw another young couple that I had met before and they remembered me but I don’t remember our conversation, only that I met them before, and only because the girl’s eyes were so locked in and so big and so round and so doey. The couple were also probably high as fuck though because they said they feel loved by the sun and the moon who look after them from above or something. I’m not doing justice to how little what they said made sense. She stared at me silently with blank, happy eyes for so long bro, literally.

Events

One of my close acquaintances stopped by but was running late for something. She said “are you good?” and her question threw me off, because usually people only ask that when something is wrong, and I wasn’t aware of giving off any such vibe. I asked her what she meant and she clarified asking if I’m okay, and I said “never, but you’re running late.” So she left, and I forgot to ask if she watched that movie yesterday that she said she was going to and which I recommend to people. I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter.

It was freezing and sometimes raining so I took a lot of breaks in that little area and sang some songs from my playlist of genre bending cover songs. Among the ones that fit the theme for today was Mad World (Gary Jules did it better), and Creep. I wanted to see what would happen if I sang to myself in public. It turns out nothing. People just ignore you. As I was walking away from the cigar shop, a young woman walked by who was singing audibly with her headphones on, a rare treat. I almost stopped her to say I was just doing that before I bought my cigar, but didn’t.

I gave a few people a light with my giant lighter including a homeless woman who was surprised by how big it was (no diddy). That was my proudest moment today, impressing a homeless woman.

I helped someone move a solid wood desk about half a block. For those two minutes I felt like a useful human being.

I saw a Panera employee try to get some police officers attention and failed to so I asked what’s up and she said there’s a guy in Panera bothering people so I offered to help defuse the situation which is one of my unusual talents, I’ve defused and deescalated arguments and fights in public many times; on the train, in fast food places or drive thrus, it’s an incredibly fun gift, but one I rarely get to use. She said sure and we went over there but the guy left already. Shortly after, police came to Panera. Later police came again to Panera and I asked, “again?” One said yeah and another said “it wasn’t you was it? Lol.”

Around 6pm this guy who was 4 inches taller than me came over and asked if my sign was religious, and started ranting about politics and evangelicals for literally 20 minutes, saying people on the left need to get guns, how women are dying because of right wingers, how he used to live in his car for a decade, among many other things. At some point, when he was very heated about a certain topic, I said I can’t agree with him on his moral stance because I’m Catholic, and I wondered if he would get violent over it, but he didn’t. Anyway he made me miss my train. A lot of people looked like they wanted to do my survey but kept walking presumably because he was there, until one young black woman came up with her friends and just butted in and started doing the sign, at which point the man ranted 20 seconds more about something and finally left.

Just as I was saying goodbye to a close acquaintance, an alarm went off in the Zara building and a couple firetrucks pulled up, and more emergency vehicles too, and blocked an area off with tape. I didn’t find out what’s going on, I went into Panera to warm up.

Professional Ragebaiter

I rarely get pissed off by anything or anyone while doing my signs, even when gang bangers tried to rob me or drug dealers tried to scare me away because I’m making their beggar customers lose out on drug money.

One couple who were about 65 and looked like vegan hikers wandered by, looking at their phone and trying to figure out how to get to their destination.

As the man passed me by smilingly, he didn’t even look at my sign, but looked at me smilingly, and shook his head no, and waved his hand as if to say “pass,” and kept walking by.

I saw him come back my way about 2 minutes later, and while his wife was checking directions, the man smilingly looked at my sign for a solid 10 seconds while he stood there waiting for her to figure out the directions.

As they walked past me again, I said “survey?” He smilingly said “sorry I don’t have any money” as he walked past me with his navigator wife. I replied “I said nothing about money” while they were still in earshot and they kept walking. I said “that was rude” but they didn’t turn around.

I felt some emotions in that moment. I didn’t say anything else, but if I had to put words to those emotions retrospectively, they’d be: “The fuck dude. You had plenty of time to read my sign, and clearly read some of it, and saw nothing about money. And I didn’t ask for money, or mention money, and I’m wearing $600 Hugo Boss pants, a $400 wool overcoat, and $160 Timberlands. Go fuck yourself.”

Of course I didn’t say any of this, and my emotions might have overreacted, but how arrogant do you have to be to smilingly stare at a survey with very few words, being held by an expensively dressed man, and assume he’s begging?

To be clear, I don’t mind people thinking I’m homeless. Some of the nicest people I’ve met are homeless people. People who don’t speak English have offered me money and I declined. Some people who do even offered me a buck or two, and while I appreciated it, I still declined, and chalked them up as too busy to read my sign.

This was different. To this man, I wasn’t even worth him paying the slightest attention to any of my words, spoken or written, even when he had ample time. He seems to live on a higher plane of existence than the rest of us mere mortals. Tsfpmo.

The only way I could excuse him is if he barely speaks English and can’t read any English, which is entirely possible, though I didn’t discern any obvious accent.

Epilogue

At the end, as I was leaving, I saw one of my close acquaintances, who invited me to hang out with him and his friends, but it was not possible due to circumstances. We shook hands as we said goodbye, and his handshake felt far more meaningful than that one hug.

When I got off the train, McDonald’s was closed for maintenance, so I went to Jewel to buy some snacks to get fatter with, and saw a homeless man I know sitting outside the door. I asked if I could sit with him and he said yeah.

We talked for a bit, and I shared my cookies with him. I showed him my survey, and asked what his answer was. He said more than Rarely, because he has a lot of friends. He declined my hot chips because they’d upset his stomach.

I know a few people who care about me, and seemingly not for any selfish reasons, nor as a mere reflection of their own conceit, but just out of genuine and selfless compassion. When I talk to those people, I feel loved.

My tentative plan next week is to do “Do you feel worthy of love?” I wonder what makes a person feel that way or not. This time I’ll add “bonus question: why?” like I planned to do this week but didn’t.