Extrovert problems

[feuervogel]

So, I work from home, and I don't really see anyone outside the pub anymore. I've been too busy to throw a party for a while (though I intend to have a 40th birthday bash), and my entire social life consists of sitting with my husband on our couch.

This is ... inadequate.

I don't get invited to parties, or "hey, we haven't seen each other in ages, let's hang out this weekend," or anything where I can feel something like an emotional connection to someone other than my husband. (OK, some newish friends from the pub invited us to poker night next weekend, but that doesn't sound like the kind of thing where you can hang out and talk about stuff, since you're playing poker.)

I like doing stuff with people! But I don't know how to get people to invite me places. No one thinks of me when they think "people I want to have at my NYE party" or whatever. This is why I keep telling Ben I don't feel like I have any friends at all anymore. Even the people I was closest to who live on the other side of the country now I feel like I've drifted really far from.

I don't know how to make it better.

Comments

[beth_leonard]

Emotional sympathy answer:
This sounds rough. It's hard for one person to meet all of another person's social needs.

Fix-it answer:
Is there someone in your life who is looking for an exercise buddy? I meet my friend from church every Monday and Friday at the gym and we walk the treadmills for half an hour together and chat before doing our separate things on the weight machines. Our stated fitness goal is to drag our bodies into the building, and neither one of us has the willpower to do it without the other. This is the time of year when people make resolutions, so it might be a good time to find someone. Do you have a neighborhood mailing list? You could ask on that to see if there is someone interested in walking with you regularly.

Given that you are an extrovert with hobbies/interests that generally appeal to introverts, one might expect that the ask/invitation ratio would be larger than one. The extroverted person might ask people to do things with her 10 times for every one time that an introverted person invites her to do things with them. The introvert is more likely to decline invitations on flimsy excuses because they feel like, "I've already socialized once this week, I can't handle another one."

You are clearly not interested in topics that frequently appeal to people in your age demographic (raising children) so much like lesbians at Mudd, your pool of candidates is small and you have to work extra hard to cultivate acceptable social contacts. Your life satisfaction difficulty switch is not set to "easy" right now.

--Beth

[feuervogel]

My neighborhood has a facebook group, which I was kicked out of because I said "rude" things about the HOA. (What I said was basically "you know, as much as it's been raining lately, you'd think the HOA would understand that we can't mow our lawns every 3 days because it's wet all the time and would cut down the nastygrams." Which was rude and awful and ban-worthy. *eyeroll*) I typically run by myself because I like it.

I did consider joining the local run club, but their Sunday 8 am run doesn't really work for me. (I'd have to get up early in order to take my empty-stomach meds, wait 30 minutes to eat, then wait 30 minutes before exercise and drive 10 minutes into town. The 10-minute drive can be included in the digestion time.)

My hobbies that involve people are tai chi (which is only not solitary if you have class, and that isn't social time) and going to the pub. Talking about SFF is also social, but it really only works if other people have read the same books as you and are interested in, say, speculating about what Miles Vorkosigan would do if he'd been the one to hatch Temeraire. Which would be a hell of a panel at a convention.

Honestly, mostly what I want to do is sit around and shoot the breeze with friends, whether that's over dinner out or beers at someone's house, I don't care. But the friends I want to do that with aren't close by, and the ones close by don't feel very close these days.