I spend way too much time alone.

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I woke up & it's hailing...

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

^ Ooh I love it when it hails, it's really exciting and atmospheric!

Definitely more exciting than the deafening silence before I make any coffee. I nuked some leftover in the microwave & now more is brewing.

Video is definitely unrelated, I swear.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Coffee? Remind me to "Jungs, noch Kaffee?" (Guys - how about a coffee?)

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I am as I am. Life has to be an adventure!

Meh, can't be natural when socialising...too difficult.

Yes i can feel social but the other humans make it too hard

Meh

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

The older I get, the more anxious I get, the more reclusive I get.

Having said that...

...hello cberg.

The more coffee I drink, the more I wake up & say hi. Now I'm guzzling more light roast french press & (re)writing a list of all the jobs I just applied to, so I can keep doing that until the place I was already working at hires me again because I drink so much of their coffee or something.

I should get in my car & stop being boring at my desk for now.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

I guess I feel like ASD represents about a million reasons not to for most people & I'm not sure how to navigate anything lately.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

I too am a nominal introvert surrounded by computers, they help keep me occupied in the absence of social interaction (or provide it, via online communities), but this pandemic, especially in the past few months (probably not helped by a miserable winter), has demonstrated to me that I have (and had, even before lockdowns) a severe social interaction deficiency.

Kinda like a vitamin deficiency, I suppose, in that if I don't get enough of it then it has real impacts on my ability to function properly. Since my teenage years, when everybody was free to casually socialise without commitments to other stuff, I've had fewer and fewer opportunities to socialise, and I think it's showing. I'm pretty much down to once or twice a year with old friends because they've moved away, constructed lives, are busy with work and building families. There's one newer friend who I see more frequently, but since we're now doing different things that's become infrequent now too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know the feeling. I'm sure I'm probably a more social person than I allow myself to believe, but because I must pretend to not be that social to disguise the massive hole in my life where socialising should be, I have to pretend it's a smaller hole than it is and that computers are enough to be a substitute.

I don't know how to fix it, clearly, because I'm having issues with it now. But regarding "fitting in", long ago I took on the approach of just... being me. I know, I know, stock template advice, but what I mean is that I don't try to be somebody else. I quickly learned that I can't, it's too exhausting anyway, I'm sure everybody here knows what that's like. Sure, maybe I seem "quirky", and sure, maybe it means there are probably some people who might not want to be friends with somebody who acts the way I do, but that's fine, I wouldn't want to be friends with somebody who expects me to be somebody else anyway.

Now here comes the tricky part: finding new friends. I was never amazing at it in the first place, but as you get older and everybody's silo'ing themselves in their new lives with their partners, kids, busy work life, there's a lot less opportunity for "just hanging out". All of the people I'd consider long-term friends/people I'm still in at least semi-frequent communication with are people I met through education over the years. This includes the friend I mentioned in the second paragraph, a few years ago as a "mature student", they're the most local friend I have right now and without them I'd be miles and miles away from anybody I know.

So I guess what I'm saying - and I know this unfortunately won't work for everybody - is that school and work are some of the biggest, most obvious environments where people will naturally gain familiarity with each other and maybe take that outside of those places. If you're lucky enough to have a job, that seems the obvious logical place to look, I can't say I have any experience there, but it has similar qualities to education in that you probably see people around and probably know them by name, you share the same environment so you have at least one thing in common. Maybe there are a few you could see if they're interested in doing something fun, outside of work? In terms of education, if you (whoever might be reading this post) had bad experiences in elementary/primary school or high/secondary school (I sure did, it sucked, hard), I'd note that college/university can be a much better place to just be yourself than normal kid/teenage school. Maybe even night classes or something, potentially more affordable and more casual, though I've never been to those so I can't really say for sure.

Whew. That's a lot more words than I intended to write when I started this post, but I suppose I covered what I meant to cover, so maybe it's the right amount of words...

I guess I have to apply all that regardless of whether I know someone or not in the first place, which by my standards really means knowing them a long time.

I really need to just initiate more, which to be fair isn't all that difficult for me, the hard part is not doing what Raleigh just said.

All that said, I just got my job back so I'll be working on the ole monitor tan twice as much just as soon as I have twice the monitors.

My family is all about the pressure to go to school so even it that went well for me it would still feel like a really complacent choice on my part. I need my own reasons but those have to stack up for a LONG time.

I guess I should sit here & ramble on this Microsoft keyboard until my face turns blue from too much coffee or something.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

The agoraphobia is real... I'm really dubious about most other people lately, not too proud to admit I need help with these things, otherwise I'm just trying to live one day at a time in the most shy way I can.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

It's not that I'm trying to envelop myself in the hedgehog's dilemma, more than anything I'd like to be closer to people but I'd be lying if I said I've generally been treated well in my life. I'm hard pressed to think of anyone outside WP who hasn't rejected some part of me.

They're free to walk away but every time someone does another part of me stops wanting to talk to anyone.

I think we live in a possessive culture that treats human beings like some stupid HDTV that needs upgrading.

Ultimately I want nothing to do with people who don't want out of this rat race. Every day people like me put up with being seen as the creepy ones. WTF? If I can't communicate stop forcing me to communicate, that s**t is REALLY CREEPY.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Here goes a weekend of wishing I had better software licensing so I could make some money like yesterday, it's sort of imperative to sticking around the company that I help out certain big shots. Lately a friendly one of them has been designing college survey technology labs & I happen to know how to make a few speedy 3D models for her. It's fun & I want to throw my weekend at it.

I'm also bored out of my mind & I need some productive activity to flex a rather expensive computer or two.

I can't do anything of use to anybody right now except for wake my roomie up to see if he wants to go get free beer.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Wait a minute... I could be useful here. Does anybody want some quick & iffy CAD work?

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos