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I recently don't feel like going out much or meeting people. I've had a small burst of wanting to reconnect with some office people after the pandemic and did, and it was wonderful. I felt cherished and connected. I will keep these contacts up now and visit them in their offices whenever I am not working from home.
But privately, I am just so content just being home right now. I sometimes do grow frustrated and angry at home when I feel like I am just doing the same stuff every day or grow sick of some executive dysfunction I experience a lot some days, but I always manage to fix it somehow or sleep it off.
But what I mean is, I am just so content being alone or just being with my girlfriend. Each doing our own thing, sometimes our stuff aligns and we do things together and sometimes we just do stuff separately in the same room. I just currently feel no desire to try out new cafés or restaurants, or visit museums, going on a big hike or anything like that. No friend dates, no traveling. Just me, studying for my degree, cuddling the dog, playing some games, coding, watching stuff, listening to music. At home. Being in Discord calls, online DnD and Jackbox sessions. Sometimes reading. I wanna get back to my embroidery projects soon and finish some crop tops I have began to sew last year. I don't like concerts or festivals in general (sadly).
And the longer this goes on, the more I feel guilty about it.
I mean, being a little more introverted isn't something new - I'm an only child and my parents pretty much neglected me, so I grew up being alone a lot in my room. In my teenage years, my mother was so controlling and abusive that I rather stayed home than risk wrath and more abuse for asking to go somewhere and having to justify myself and argue. We have always been too poor to travel. So I think I simply grew up as a person who made the best of it within her home, and now it's hard for me to come out of this shell. I remember when I moved out I told myself it would all be different now that I'm free and I was super motivated and had a very outgoing few months, but the pandemic shoved me right back in. Together with rising costs, my autism and some light social anxiety and agoraphobia and my upbringing, I almost think the ship has sailed a bit. And I wonder how I should feel about it - should I fight against this? Should I be happy and grateful for being able to enjoy so much alone time? Should I be happy about how much money I am saving and how I am safer from infectious diseases? Should I panic instead, feeling like I am wasting my youth and that I'm gonna wake up in my 30s regretting it all and being unable to find connection to my peers irl?
The recent phase has just simply intensified it by a lot. Instead of feeling held back by my introverted tendencies and craving a better social life and fuller calendar and forcing myself out, I now feel at peace with how it is and don't seem to need the outside world or other people much. It puts me at a weird position of asking myself if I am simply mentally giving into something bad (since being so isolated is deemed boring and bad generally) or if I should be grateful I have finally stopped having desires that are incompatible with my energy levels, social skills, sensory comfort and so on. That has always put me in the bad spot of feeling like I desire what I can't have or reasonably maintain.
I did put effort into meeting people last year, and one good connection did come out of it, but I am currently not feeling inspired at all to meet up with her, and that makes me feel guilty too. I told her earlier that I am sorry for being so withdrawn lately and not taking initiative in hitting her up to hang out, that it's not her fault and just a phase that will blow over, and thankfully she was very understanding. Her answers though made it seem as if she thought it was some depressive phase I slid into that caused this, but I do not feel like it's that type of antisocial phase. It seems unrelated to mental health.
Anyway, it makes me confused about what I want. Do I hope for this to go away or stay? I think I'd be happier if it stayed, because then what I want isn't at odds with what I can realistically incorporate into my life and of course I would be less emotionally reliant on other people (this feels safer), but I would also be scared I am living my life wrong. If it blows over, I feel a little more close to the norm again, but I also struggle again. The expectation is simply to use your 20s to be very outgoing, to travel, to meet lots of people because it's getting harder the older you get. I don't want to wake up from a deep slumber one day and looking around me and no one is there. Living an isolated life is okay until it suddenly isn't and you crave more people in your life, and then how easy is it to just turn that around on a whim?
𓇽 ° . ༻ 𓈒 ꒪ ๋ ° .𓏲⠀ ๋࣭ ♡ ͘ ࣭⠀⸰ ⋆ ֗ ִ ᨒ .⋆ﾟ. ͘ ࣭⠀⸰ ♡ 𓂂 ◌ 𓇽 ° . ๋ 𓂂 ⠀✼ 𓇽