Stefan's reality: "For over a century, I lived in the shadows."

Everyone else's reality:

1864 - Stefan met Lexi. After that, he was never alone.
1917 - Stefan is living out in the open in Mystic Falls, apparently happy with his life.
1917 - 1930 - Stefan is on a bender, befriending Klaus, falling in love with Rebekah and living the high life in 1920s Chicago.
1940s - Stefan is over being detoxed by Lexi and is apparently recovered enough with his blood issues to be in a fraking war. (Even though he told Elena he gave up his dream of being a doctor because of blood issues and minor scrapes and cuts set him off.)
1960s - Stefan spent time living freely in Mystic Falls again and protested wars with Sheila Bennett. He also hung out with Playboy bunnies at the Playboy mansion.
1980s - Stefan and Lexi hung out with Bon Jovi and went to rock concerts.
1990s - Stefan was in Seattle, doing the grunge rock thing.
2009 - Stefan is back home in Mystic Falls living freely and in the open.
2010 - Stefan has the girlfriend he always wanted, his brother is trying to help him, he goes on a ripper bender and no one cares and he has gotten everything he ever wanted.
Also in there somewhere -- Stefan climbed Mt. Everest and attended Harvard.

What part of that is "living in the shadows" again?

Damon's reality:

1864 - 1917 - Damon Ieaves Mystic Falls and lives alone, lonely and celibate for 50 years.
1917 - Damon returns to Mystic Falls, tried to reconnect with Stefan and is shocked to learn that Stefan has no ability to control the bloodlust.
1920s - Damon is shadowing Stefan, but keeping his distance.
1940s - Damon is in New Orleans dealing with some kind of spell thing.
1970s - Damon is hanging out on a college campus with Bree, looking for information on how to get in the tomb
1990s - Damon shows up in Seattle.
2009 - Damon is in Mystic Falls, determined to free Katherine.
2010 - Damon learns that Katherine was never in the tomb and never loved him, it was always Stefan. He stays in Mystic Falls because he has no friends and nowhere else to go. Despite himself, he makes one friend and he falls in love with Elena. Everyone else hates him and treats him like a disposable commodity - good to have when you need him, but not worth treating well when you don't. He saves their lives over and over, and risks his life repeatedly to get Stefan back to Mystic Falls. At the end of the day, after saving everyone on Team MF at one point or another, Damon gets left behind by the entire team to be killed - by the monster his only friend was turned into - alone in a storage shed in the middle of nowhere. And Elena once again chose Stefan. And Stefan wants him to leave town. Going into S4, Damon has exactly no one.

Yeah, it's Stefan who has lived alone and in the shadows for 145 years.

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