[DarkTree]

Your experience seems related to my issue ever since I left college.

I really enjoy my personal time and relish the idea of coming home on a Friday with no social plans or obligations, so that I can do my own thing, read, or program some personal projects. I highly value learning, and it is hard for me to be disciplined if I'm being social during the week. So sometimes I just keep to myself all week. I exercise after work, come home and make a nice dinner, program and read about the things I love, and I love doing this.

My problem is that after doing this for extended periods of time, I actually start to get sad and feel like I'm constantly optimizing my life for nothing, because what's the point of life if you don't share it with others? So then I switch gears and try to be as social as possible, and start enjoying life as I meet new people and come home late at night after an epic outing with my friends, laying down in my bed feeling happy and satisfied with my decisions (a significant part of this feeling is being drunk for sure). And slowly but surely, the feeling comes creeping up: I've lost touch with who I am, everything I learned weeks ago was for nothing because now I'm forgetting it, and I'm wasting my time and hurting my future by being too social.

I guess it's just hard for me to strike a balance. I think I like to go all in on things and so I feel like this chronic teeter-totter is going to be my life for a while.

[sotojuan]

You are overthinking it - a balance is not hard to achieve. Go out a few days a week, learn the rest. You are most likely to get invited to go out Friday and Saturday nights, so spend weekday nights or Sunday studying. No need to go all out in one or the other.

> I've lost touch with who I am, everything I learned weeks ago was for nothing because now I'm forgetting it, and I'm wasting my time and hurting my future by being too social.

In my experience, not only does the former happen even when I am full time learning (I "wasted" a lot of nights in college learning programming stuff I never used nor can remember), but it rarely hurts my career. I mean, career goals are personal and differ, but I doubt you are hurting your career by going out every now and then.

[fiachamp]

Word. Humans are inherently social beings. Even from birth, physical touch changes rate of brain development for the better. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201310...

Really good book on relationships and humans as fundamentally social is Attached. Leaving ya with the final memo from Chris McCandless, independent adventurer from 'Into the Wild': "Happiness only real when shared"

[DarkTree]

I actually read Into the Wild when I was younger and that was the quote I was channeling. That quote has resonated with me ever since and reshaped the way I think about relationships and what it means to be happy.

[eduren]

>because what's the point of life if you don't share it with others?

That seems like an assumption created by social pressure. There are plenty of aspects that make life worthwhile that don't need to be shared.

[contingencies]

It's an interesting question. Certainly, received wisdom in my own family is that shared experience is what creates meaning in our life and memories. However, one can find many successful figures in history (Nikola Tesla, etc.) who were certainly 'successful', nominally happy, and relative or declared hermits. I've met real world hermits who seem content. One of the big European self-help authors got his start as an antisocial homeless person meditating on Buddhism. Discipline and a lifelong love of learning and intellectual exploration are not automatic traits... perhaps those without these types of developed habits find it harder to obtain fulfillment in relative solitude?

[visarga]

You don't need many friends, you need a wife that would listen to your stories, and to focus on your hobbies.

[CharlesDodgson]

God help anyone who has to listen to my stories! I wonder how my partner does it!

At the time I as single and not really looking for anyone else in an emotion or physical way, 8 years later and I'm still not married. bu that's fine. As a sidebar, I'm not really that hot on the concept of marriage, not that I don't believe in monogamy, I just don't think I need to get the State involved in the validation of my love for and monogamous commitment to another person. Although to keep family sweet and social norms I'll probably get the piece of paper.

[eduren]

Not only are you assuming their gender/spousal preferences, but I feel this grossly simplifies the issue.

Not everybody needs a "wife" (maybe you should have said partner) and I'm not sure why you are assuming that would help the poster.

[soared]

OP said 'wife' and we all understood what op meant. There is nothing negative to his comment, why are you implying there was?

[bananabiscuit]

It’s ok to sometimes make some assumptions in order to make your point more digestible and keep the conversation flowing.

As to why he thinks getting a wife would help the poster: I’d bet visarga had the experience of getting a wife or some kind of partner, and found that it helped him through a similar problem the poster is having.

It’s ok to share your anecdotal experiences. This is an Internet forum, not somebody’s peer reviewed dissertation.

[watwut]

Fixed for opposite gender: You don't need many friends, you need a husband that would listen to your stories, and to focus on your hobbies.

[CharlesDodgson]

Thanks for sharing, I think we had a very similar experience, I'm actually not a drinker, never took to it, so I guess I never experience that side of it.

[0xCMP]

This mirrors my own feelings about this. I often rely on my friends bothering me to hangout ("It's been two weeks!") as a signal it's been too long.