How important is social life to you?

I make a lot of friends at places I goto, such as work and school, but I only ever want to hang out with a very few select friends.
 
I'm a fairly shy person, but I have a big group of friends and we're all quite close knit (also, girlfriend). Still, I'm very introverted and can get quite agitated when around people for too long.
 
Zephos said:
I'm a fairly shy person, but I have a big group of friends and we're all quite close knit (also, girlfriend). Still, I'm very introverted and can get quite agitated when around people for too long.
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HAHA I feel the same sometimes but that has something to do with us all being on a vent server together.

I spent most of last year at uni without knowing anyone and it was terrible. This year I've gotten in with a big group of people who are always doing stuff and it's much more fun.
 
sinkoman said:
You seriously have to be trying to have no social life.
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No. Having no social life is quite easy. All you have to do is not demonstrate any interest in other people. It doesn't require you to do anything.
 
Social life is pretty important. I've got an awesome group of friends, I just wish I could spend more time with them.
 
It's probably worth drawing a distinction between 'friends' and 'social life'. Most people have a few really good friends at least. But to my mind 'social life' means moving in a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, making appearances at gatherings and meetings, and playing, to some extent, a social game of politics which is usually benign.

I have individual close friends who I try to see or contact regularly no matter what's going on in my life, and then I have two or three small (3-10 people) 'circles' of friends who I see when there's the opportunity and to whom I feel a kind of tribal loyalty. Then there are wider rings associated with these circles. These consist of people who I don't know enormously well, and probably wouldn't sacrifice a part of my body for, but who I'll always have a good time with if I meet.

My social life is very important to me because I love to be in community with those smaller circles, feeling that every piece of news which affects one person is one which affects all of us. And it's just as important to me to be able to play that game one plays among the wider circles, to be able to regularly go out and rub up against people (sometimes literally). I enjoy the interaction and I enjoy the laughter and I enjoy the interchange because at bottom I'm a gregarious person who can't go more than a few days not talking to someone without utterly losing my own sense of self, without going in some small way a bit insane. Plus, it's always good for self-esteem, to be able to move among people and feel at home with them and accepted.

Lately though I've been missing it a bit. It's been a while since I was properly moving in that third and outer kind of circle. I guess this is because that kind of loose relationship is really kept together either by closer relationships between individuals in the ring, who invite each other along and are all happy to see everyone else's friends too, or by the pressure of a mutual environment like school, university or the workplace. Away from Uni, in Brighton, I have to rely on the former, and I only have a few close friends within those rings that can help drag me into them, which means if they are away or busy I have no access. That makes me realise once again something I keep realising and then forgetting: if having no social life is easy, maintaining one is work. It can take as much of an investment of time and energy as working or education. I'm too lazy to quite operate at the ambassador's-wife level where "Social politics IS MY LIFE" but I am constantly trying to stop that all slipping away. It's difficult because I'm poor at maintaining contact even with people I used to know quite well. I'll be very sad if when I leave university I don't keep in contact with a lot of people there. But realistically I don't know if I really will. I need to establish some kind of book, full of the names and numbers of people I commit myself to seeing at least once a month.

Of course, the other thing about 'social life' is that it can be pretty important for your advancement in the world. It's not what you know it's who you know, etc. A chance meeting can make for great changes in fortune, or so Victorian novelists tell me! This is especially true at university, where undeveloped shrubling people are hothoused into maturity and thrown into the outside world - and especially true at my university. Well, because I'm bad enough at maintaining connections with people I'm close to, I'm total shit at maintaining connections with people for tactical reasons. I'm shit at the 'networking' which is such a big part of social life, and am anxious about the opportunities I may miss.

Well, this rambled. One other thing: I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this site. As much as we like to discount the internet in favour of EARTH, social life there is as possible and as real as elsewhere. It's also a kind of social life which so many people engage in, and with such passion, attaching such importance to it, that it's impossible to just dismiss as the preserve of nerds. So I don't really have a problem with admitting that a reasonable chunk of my social life exists here and on other websites.
 
Holy shit. I thought I put it pretty well but Sulk just blew me out of the water. I'm tempted to edit my post and just quote all that.
 
My response to this thread was originally going to be just quoting your post.
picture.php
 
Sulkdodds said:
It's probably worth drawing a distinction between 'friends' and 'social life'. Most people have a few really good friends at least. But to my mind 'social life' means moving in a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, making appearances at gatherings and meetings, and playing, to some extent, a social game of politics which is usually benign.

I have individual close friends who I try to see or contact regularly no matter what's going on in my life, and then I have two or three small (3-10 people) 'circles' of friends who I see when there's the opportunity and to whom I feel a kind of tribal loyalty. Then there are wider rings associated with these circles. These consist of people who I don't know enormously well, and probably wouldn't sacrifice a part of my body for, but who I'll always have a good time with if I meet.
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Essentially this.

I tend to drift in and out of those outer circles fairly regularly, as I end up building a lot of dislike for certain types, especially at the pompous-socialite 'I am wordly and learned' age that my peers are in right now. Which is too bad, because I put a lot of effort into staying, as Sulk said, benign and approachable, however some just can't come off anything but douchey or uninteresting after a few months of knowing them. Of course, that makes me sound completely snobbish myself, but I hope those that know me know of what I speak.
 
I don't like other people. Not any more. I've discovered there is a name for it. Misanthropy.

Present company excluded--for the most part--probably because I am disconnected so much using the forums.

I'm not sure I can explain.

I care about people, but I just don't find any reason to want to know them. I feel like I am an outcast. If I meet people, where I used to mesh right up and instantly connect with people, now I feel separated. Like a monster.

I feel like I am not the same species. I don't like to go out on the weekends. Yet occasionally I am coerced to go out with family or friends from work, and I have a god damn blast. Like I forgot that going out can be fun. I remembered parties as being sad for some reason. And in a way, they are.

You have a fantastic time for a few hours and then you get to know people and never want to see half the people there again or something.

I guess it's an irrational fear like people afraid to leave their house, which I also have. But for me it's not really irrational because every time I used to leave my house I'd get arrested. I'm paranoid and afraid of society now. What happens outside.

When I need to go out to the store to get groceries I get an incredible feeling of anxiety, but I must. Once I'm at the store, I feel completely normal, and people smile and I make a random joke in the check out line, people laugh and women do talk to me and try to get to know me, but I am evasive.

Just going out to my car and driving somewhere, I feel like I'm unwelcome in the world. You know that feeling when you are going to a girls house to pick her up for a first date? That feeling of uncertainty, of intimidation, a bit of butterflies. I feel this before I see people.

No, I much prefer being alone. There is no chance for drama, for emotional pain that is always the case in intimate relationships.

It's weird that this happened to me because I used to have contacts with hundreds of people, and couldn't stand being alone. I'd always have to be out with friends or I would go insane. From one party to the next. It was like I was addicted to socializing, for 15 years, every day, I was out with friends.

Then one day I found I was at my friend's house I'd always be uncomfortable. Stirring, anxious beyond description. I'd have to just leave and go home. This went on for about a year. In about 2001 I moved, completely cut off all contact with friends, and I never tried to make friends again.

Something or somethings ****ed me up.
 
You know what I hate? Groups of people larger than 5 waltzing down the sidewalk from the dining hall. They take up the whole space of the sidewalk yammering on about stupid shit and only sometimes step aside to let other people by. Having observed the behavior of some of the people in those groups (including some acquaintances); I conclude (applicable to me personally), I would ****ing hate to be a part of that on a daily basis. That's not to say I've never been in one once in a blue moon.
 
I think I have a great social life. Sometimes though, nothing beats just chilling in your house all alone in your boxers watching Maury and seeing if Jamal is really 2000% sure he's not Jolanda's baby's daddy.
 
Sulkdodds said:
if having no social life is easy, maintaining one is work. It can take as much of an investment of time and energy as working or education.
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I agree with this. Even just replying to email is something I have trouble doing.

Also, I always feel like I owe a great response, but if I have to think long and hard about what to say, I don't feel it is genuine, so I just don't reply.
 
I had a good group of friends throughout high school. We all graduated in 2007 and then everybody went their separate ways for college, though. Since then I've had pretty much no social life as a typical person my age would define it. I see some of my better high school friends every couple months or so to catch up. I kind of like it. It's hard to make friends at a junior college anyway, but I actually find myself not really wanting to. I'll make a couple friends when I transfer to university, but here at junior college, I really don't care to.

I'm a pretty quiet guy and I always have been. I don't like parties, I don't like working in groups, and I don't like crowds. I usually prefer a quiet day enjoying my hobbies and hanging out over anything else.
 
AKIRA said:
I think I have a great social life. Sometimes though, nothing beats just chilling in your house all alone in your boxers watching Maury and seeing if Jamal is really 2000% sure he's not Jolanda's baby's daddy.
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Oh my god yesssssssssssssssss.
 
i'm invited out quite a lot. i choose not to go for the most part

sits well with me
 
I have 4 best friends who I see multiple times in a week and I don't venture much out of that little circle.

Good enough for me
 
Having a social life is as necessary to spiritual survival as hydration and nutrition. The social life doesn't need to be massive or intense, but everybody needs to have contact to other people sometimes. So, I'd say that the question this thread asks, is stupid by itself, as everyone needs other people, humans being very social and intelligent animals.
 
I probably could have put "a little bit" in front of everything my first post and it would have been more accurate. It's not bat shit crazy like you see in the movies, but just a nagging feeling that I get. It does make me reluctant to go out, but doesn't keep me in my own prison.

I expect Raz and I might have similar issues. I just realized I haven't seen him post in a while.
 
VirusType2 said:
I expect Raz and I might have similar issues. I just realized I haven't seen him post in a while.
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Well, after reading your post I think we might have the same "condition" sort of speak. Like you mentioned, I also feel reluctant every time I have to go out. So I end up going out only when I really have to, for example: shopping, paying taxes etc.
 
ShadowArmy said:
No. Having no social life is quite easy. All you have to do is not demonstrate any interest in other people. It doesn't require you to do anything.
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Yeah, but human nature has us all scrambling for contact with one another, so you've got to actively be fighting that urge to communicate to become alone.

To contribute to the thread, i'm actually shy as ****, depending on who and how many people i'm with. If it's just me and one or two other people hanging out, I can be a little conversational fireball, spouting all sorts of random shit that comes to mind, and just burning off all my social energy. I love talking to people.

Once it gets to being around 5 or 6 people or more though, I kinda just shut up and don't bother saying anything until i'm spoken to. I don't know why, I think I just never figured out that mass group dynamic when I was younger, because my groups of friends were always pretty small. You know, just one or two partners in crime. I get really antsy and anxious too when there's a lot of people around, almost a feeling of being genuinely frightened. I'm just awkward as **** with lots of people I guess.

I also can't be around people for long periods of time. After maybe 6+ hours with a person/people, that same antsy and anxious feeling kicks in, and I like to be alone, so I can kinda absorb whatever we did.

I'll go stretches too, where i'm a total recluse, and actually enjoy that depressive and lonely feeling that comes from being solitary. But then i'll get bored and want to be around peeps.

Remus said:
Well, after reading your post I think we might have the same "condition" sort of speak. Like you mentioned, I also feel reluctant every time I have to go out. So I end up going out only when I really have to, for example: shopping, paying taxes etc.
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This is exactly how I feel when i'm entering a situation involving lots of people by myself. I'm kinda on the fringe about it, can't decide if it's a good idea or a bad idea, when there's really no reason for it to be a bad idea.
 
sinkoman said:
Yeah, but human nature has us all scrambling for contact with one another, so you've got to actively be fighting that urge to communicate to become alone.
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Strange, I don't ever get that feeling IRL.

But if posting stuff online, anonymously, without getting to know anybody still counts as social life, I guess that is sort of true for me.
 
ShadowArmy said:
Strange, I don't ever get that feeling IRL.

But if posting stuff online, anonymously, without getting to know anybody still counts as social life, I guess that is sort of true for me.
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Exactly. It's your brain being all "holy **** let me go and talk to somebody pls", but your conscious being all "no **** you, go make a thread about it or something".
 
When I was a kid, I remember hearing stories of scientific studies where isolated people actually ****ing die without human contact of some sort. I think. Maybe it was babies that would die without love or something.
 
Maybe it was because no one was there to feed the baby.
 
Close friends are way harder to find. Normal friends, dare I say acquaintances, not so difficult.
 
L3N!N said:
Close friends are way harder to find. Normal friends, dare I say acquaintances, not so difficult.
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You don't find close friends, you make them by sharing experiences, trading favours etc.
 
By age thirty I may become a proper hermit. Maybe. It's quite possible.

Only have one good friend these days (and he might be all I need tbh), and outside of a few regular people I'm chummy with when they're over, I guess I don't really have much of a social life. That sounds sad, and it certainly was for a time considering I used to have assloads of friends despite being a solid introvert, but I'm not really bothered with it any more. I chit-chat and shoot the crap with coworkers and I get along really well with my managers, but I don't hang out with them or anything. I'm usually so split between class and work that by the end of the day I'd rather be by myself and tending to my own activities.

Whenever I meet up with my old high school friends, I'm back to going out and hitting clubs/bars every day. Removed from that, there's not a whole lot of people I'd like to do that with, let alone get to know them.
 
i used to care about how many friends I have but now I'm happy with my best friends. its easier this way plus I'm a couch potato
 
Fewer close friends means a faster bong rotation.
 
Fewer bongs means a faster close friend rotation.
 
fewer rotations mean a faster close friend bong rotation.....basically if you smoke a little by yourself and then go into a session you're bound to get so high
 
I think that's what everyone does anyway.

NOT ME THOUGH, MY VAPORISER IS NEVER USED.
 
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