Okay. If I want to publish more posts, I need to start somewhere. Whenever I write a longer text, I think it’s utter crap. I tend to whine about myself, and that’s not helping anyone. But if that’s causing me to never upload anything, it might be better to just get it out and move on! So here’s another whiny crap post. Since this blog isn’t even RSS-feedable, I can pretend that no one reads it anyway :^)

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I have my own office. It’s a small ~12m2 sized room with a tiny kitchen and bathroom a couple of streets from where I live.

It sounds like every artist’s dream. I love it. But sometimes I feel sick when stepping through the door, mainly on weekends. That has only started recently. Feeling sick in certain situations (and not because you ate something bad) is a strong sign that something is wrong.

I’m lonely. Not always – I thrive well when I’m alone. I love to work alone. But sometimes the loneliness catches up to me. I have a very small social network (core family, few friends that live nearby, and friends that I rarely see because they live far away). And there’s also the feeling of always seeing the same things, and walking the same streets, every fucking day.

I need a change of scenery sometimes. To get my brain out of the same circles that it’s running again and again and again. It would help to just not be in the office on weekends, but staying at home all day is even worse. There is nothing to do at home.

The thing is – it’s a necessity. If it weren’t a necessity, I would just stay in my office cave forever, haha.

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I know what to do: I need to go to a different place. Ideally also meeting someone. Ideally on a regular basis.

But it’s never easy. It never was, and maybe never will. I never know where to go and whom to meet. How do you meet new people? I have no clue.

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A couple of things I’ve done over the past few years: playing D&D, organised artist meetups, met with a friend who lives close by, met with friends who live further away, went to a sports course, visited relatives.

• D&D is great social activity. But my social energy is empty after an hour. I don’t exactly have fun playing and I’m a bad player (even though I’m a writer, I don’t understand how to play a character. I tend to just play myself, I think?). So I stopped participating about a year ago. But now I think it’s a better option than to sit in my office all weekend.
• Artist Meetups! I organised a couple before covid hit, and then had a long break. We resumed them with a first meeting in March, which was really nice. I will think of a next date soon.
• Working out in a group is great. I get physically in action, am in a different place, and see some people. Our leader is currently sick though, so I need to find something else. I started doing ballet again (I’m a super beginner), and want to try a course in the city, too.
• Meeting with friends is also nice. Too bad that some just live so far away. Chatting helps a bit to not feel lonely, but it’s not the same as meeting in real life. When chatting, you’re more free in when to reply, but irl, you just hang out between an hour and several days, and can’t just not react to the other person, hah.

All of those things aren’t first choices for me. They are a necessity, not a free choice. I could get mad at it or try to change it, but what if that is just how I’m built? I can only accept that it’s hard, but that I need it. Exercise is hard, too, but it makes me feel so much better. Social interactions are hard, but they feed my brain.

Typing this out helps a little, too. It makes me feel less lonely to imagine that some people might relate. I know that I’m not the only lonely person – pah, loneliness is as old as human existence. So being lonely together helps, too.