am i isolated bc i'm extremely online or am i extremely online bc i'm isolated?

[mychemicalvyvanse]

idk how to word this. does anyone else (namely late millennials/early zoomers) feel like u missed a lot of irl social rites of passage in yr teens/early adulthood?

like i'm fully aware it's past 9 pm and you should never trust how u feel about the state of ur life at this time lmao   

like... i'm 27, moved to the city in 2020 after growing up in a small town where i never got invited to shit and i was pretty standoffish in a self-protective way. it's not like i was a complete homebody as a teen, like i would get out of the suburbs every chance i could get and my city thankfully had a lot of queer youth programs + DIY spaces, so that's largely where i made my friends and went outside.

by the time i hit the age of majority in my country, i was working full-time and starting to take classes in college, and i was rly starting to hit some major autistic burnout and health issues that i was getting no support for, so that plus a lot of conflicts and normal friendship endings led to me very rarely going to shows or art things bc i didn't have a go-to friend group the way i often did as a teen. and that kinda ebbed and flowed and i'd often go out with people i was dating - as of last spring this is the longest time i've been single since i was a teenager.

so like... now i don't have my go-to people to tag along with, my sensory/social issues + fatigue + chronic pain make it rly hard to Go Out like a normal 20something, plus i'm trying to be somewhat COVID cautious (like i try to avoid poorly-ventilated crowded spaces and i wear a mask at indoor events). but... idk, this past year has put me thru the wringer in terms of Life Altering Events, and i feel like a lot of my personality and connection to others has really faded out.

but then i also don't feel like i had much of that to begin with, because a lot of the third spaces i used to go to have just Ceased To Exist. and my city pretty systemically gets rid of accessible/affordable/independent venues and events, bc it was a rapidly gentrifying hellhole 10 years ago when i was first getting out and exploring independently, and now it's just gotten 10x worse plus i don't have a lot of people in my life who i can spend nights dickin around the riverbanks or shitty old parking lots with.

so idk. what do i do with that? i know this is inherently kinda a place where a lot of us grew up very online and likely very isolated so maybe i'm asking in the wrong place. but i just perpetually feel like there's less and less space for me to Be A Person outside of going to work, surviving and masking like hell, and then coming home and crashing, and obviously that's true for a lot of us rn but i think i'm just seeking hope that there's More To Life Than This. ya know?

also if u somehow have a social life and/or involvement in your Local Arts Scene while being autistic and chronically ill, pleaseeeee tell me your secrets lol 

[Rosaria Delacroix]

Afraid that I can't offer much by way of insight into 'more than this,' but if it helps, this is fairly relatable. A combination of extreme childhood abuse, and lifelong problems from my disabilities have pretty much left me a social recluse. It's something I've always struggled with- a sense of disconnect and unreality: and I haven't really found a good solution to it. I've been recovering from some massive burnout- and after a year and a half, I'm slowly starting to feel more like myself: yet oddly disjointed, all the same.

I've found that I'm pretty awkward in person, which isn't particularly helped by perpetually looking as if I'm 'quite sad' or else 'in pain,' which tends to evoke a mixture of pity or disgust from most people. Once people get to know me, I'm quite warm and friendly- I'm observant enough to skirt by with something resembling charisma, and I do genuinely take an interest in learning about and from the people around me, which is more than half of the hill in being a 'people person,' anyway. But there's always a sense of distance: in part because inevitably, people don't particularly want to deal with someone as mangled as I am.

I've sort of come to terms with it, I suppose. It's made me a little colder than I would have naturally been inclined to be: but we're all shaped in part by our experiences, so it's nothing that I hold against myself. In the meantime, I try to do things I can be proud of: I pursue my creative passions, I strive to be the person I never had- I love the very, very select few in my life fiercely. Most days, if I don't talk to my older brother, I won't talk to anyone at all. I'm introverted, so it doesn't drive me up the wall the way it might an extravert- but I'm resigned to playing the hand of cards I've been dealt the best I can, and especially in this tender, bruised transition out of burnout so bad I was nearly forcibly hospitalized against my will, I've been trying to be gentle with myself.

It's difficult, being lonely. I try to fill the void the best I can with what I've always returned to, found to be a constant for myself: writing. It doesn't particularly matter if no one else reads it- (though it is a pleasure to write with loved ones, one of the main hobbies we can mutually enjoy, my health being as limited as it is), writing in of itself is fulfilling to me. Perhaps it's because I've grown up with it as my main form of interfacing with the world. Writing is a refuge from my life. It remains foundational to it. When I have no one, and nothing else: I have language, and my command over it.

If I'm honest with myself: while more company would be really nice, I find the entire prospect thoroughly exhausting. I have one or two people who I speak to on a semi regular basis. I have one person whose phone number I could put down as an emergency contact. It's not much: but it's enough. I have a handful of friendly faces, people I might pop by to make small talk with: and one person who sees through me, piercingly: who knows me, because we are terribly, intimately, similar people.

Most people aren't lucky enough to even have that: one person with whom they can wholly be themselves, without fear of judgement or reprisal. If everyone else in the world despises me, or discards me like so much baggage: I have at least one person who cares for me, who wants the best for me- and that knowledge bolsters my hard won security in knowing that I am enough to carry myself through the worst of my life, because it has always been me, and myself alone, to do so.

For the most part: I write. I keep to myself, and I've found a thin sort of normalcy in it, if not comfort. I make an effort to maintain at least a few threads of communication, but it's a balancing act, and a careful dance in juggling my capacity and my emotional needs. But for me, writing has always been the both the knock and answer: the measure by which I reach out, and the ways in which I am known. Hopefully you'll find something as deeply fulfilling in your life, that helps to close that gap.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Relying to the title, I'd go for the latter explanation. The problems you describe (gentrification, being bound by labor, no public places for exchange) are known global phenomenons, so is the resulting loneliness on the individual layer, and the sidestepping to online spaces is logical and also described in many cases. (The philosopher Virilio is interesting in this context).

Since the currently hegemonic neo-liberal ideology made self-responsibility for the individual situation to one of the central dogmas of our time, it is also natural to believe that we are lonely and isolated because we somehow failed. This is not true. These problems are mass phenomena, and they are increasing.

But the only thing that I can recommend: Try to use your possibilities as good as you can, within what your vigor allows you. Use the platforms that you feel help you, and try to shun those that you feel are toxic to your well-being. Search for allies, search for places that are still open to you. Try to be politically active within your personal and local possibilities - it will allow you to at least fight for a change, and you will also (probably) meet some people on the way.  Evade getting roped into the big online platforms and harmful (both off- and online) communities alike (you can't utilize them - they are designed to utilize you), and use whatever tool and measure needed to control their influence over your own life. And if you try something and it doesn't work out, try to keep your frustration at check, by realizing that you do/did what you could within your personal limits, and try to be glad about the things that you have and that do work out.

[nobo]

I can't speak for any other people, but in so much as I can relate, I think it's both.

I used to be very social when I was a teenager and young adult. I went out to parties and did all the normal young people stuff and more. But as I got older, I started having more mental health problems, neurological problems, social problems, etc. They all kind of stack.

But it's not a good idea to blame everything on circumstance. How many times did we all have opportunities to do things but we chose to stay in where it was comfortable and cozy and alone. Over time, making that decision too often, people disconnect from you and you forget how to connect to others.

So... if you still have a chance, before you get black pilled like me, try to put yourself out there the next time you have a chance. Be uncomfortable. Risk being a burden on others. Because it reaches a point where it's just too late.

[musicobsessed107]

I feel you, especially as someone who was emotionally abused via helicoptering by my paranoid and controlling maternal grandmother during my teen years and not allowed to go anywhere by myself until the age of 17, and quite mentally ill on top of that (oh, and how can I forget about the lockdowns of 2020 and into early 2021?). And of course, having my teen years from stupid 2019 - present doesn't help either as there are many cool rites of passage that I missed out on during my time in high school (although now as a college freshman, I'm slowly making up for what I lost out on from my younger years and am really reclaiming my life for myself now as an adult woman).

I've been trying to spend more of my time offline when possible, as I did during the first few years of my childhood until around 2015 or so, and do spend a good amount time going out when I'm not being super bombarded with school assignments. Being online can be fun every once in a while, but being offline is truly liberating, particularly so in this day and age of enshittification and zombies everywhere you look.

Honestly, I find that the more often I go out, the happier I am overall and am more comfortable with socializing with others (especially strangers, whom I've been indoctrinated to fear up until I was 13 and started letting go of this fear upon sneaking out of the house to go to places around town during the day at that age).