got time?

[mangosteen]

For quite some time I've felt like I've cut myself off from society.

Go ahead. Laugh. I'll wait.

Done? Good.

For me, there are three scales of social interaction:
1. macro-social: Large gatherings of people, with an optional focus (e.g. big parties, large weekly social gatherings, etc.)
2. micro-social: Individual units of people meeting, usually with some focus (e.g. a couple of people coming over for dinner, having a one-on-one bull session over coffee, etc.)
3. meso-social: Gatherings of small groups of people, usually with some focus (I'll get back to this in a second)

I'm all good on macro-social interaction. It's unlikely that any of you would debate me on this one, so let's move on. I'm also basically okay on micro-social interaction, although there are more than a few people where I should make the time to get together with them and just talk for a while.

Meso-social interaction is where, until around two months ago, I fell down rather spectacularly. During the dot-com boom, I worked for a few companies that demanded my body and soul 24/7. Participating in any regularly-meeting group where my absence would be noted (or my presence missed) was completely out of the question. So, I've missed out. At least, I have felt that I have missed out on some important facet of life. All these random group activities where people actually do stuff, as opposed to being randomly social.

Observation: When life=work, "work-life balance" is semantically null. I've heard of "work hard, play hard", but the empirical evidence yields something more like "work hard, worry about not working hard".

Now, I've been in a sane job for about 2.5 years at this point, but I've persisted in being averse to putting regular commitments in my schedule, for fear that something would "just come up" at the last minute and I'd disappoint someone; usually myself.

Somewhere around the beginning of this year, I decided to so something about it, and true to form, I did it a) with single-minded dedication and b) all at once.

I now have a-cappella group rehearsals weekly.
I also now have a poker night that I run (?!) fortnightly.
Both of these make me very happy, for mostly different reasons. The former because I get to sing with a group again (as well as gain a desperately-needed creative outlet), and the latter because not only do I get to engage in a competitive activity with friends, but because I created this particular meso-social event, and I'm glad that I get to bring people together for it.

This means that for any given month, at least six (and sometimes seven) nights are filled with meso-social activities, up from zero not too long ago.

To answer the next question, yes, I do feel like I have "filled in" part of my life due to this. I feel more fulfilled now. Put this on top of possibly reading 50 books this year (an order of magnitude more than I typically finish over that time), and I'm finally getting to the point of being the "well-rounded individual" that I desperately desire to be, but to my view, I have always fallen short of being.

So, in short, either I have a life, or I'm just really busy.
Not sure yet.

Comments

[xthread.livejournal.com]

That's really neat.

[dchenes.livejournal.com]

You have a life. I'm busy. (Although being a full-time student is a category of life=work.)

[gingicat]

I've actually felt rather cut off from you, specifically, for some time... when you say you don't read my LJ, which is where most invitations for meso-social interaction appear, it hurts rather a lot.

I tend to post meso-social gathering invitations in my LJ, rather than to Suspects or Boston-Foo, because it feels right. Sure, I *could* email people individually, and sometimes I do. But posting it to a "friends-locked" post makes it feel like I'm inviting the people who really care, and who I really care about, and the invitation is still pretty widely open.

I haven't been getting out much to other folks' gatherings because my tolerance for macro-social interaction has gone way down, and I haven't gotten many invitations for micro-social or meso-social things. And sometimes (as with last weekend) it simply requires too much activation energy to leave the house. (Whether that's a pregnancy symptom or a depression symptom is anyone's guess.)

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

Random question: what do you think of the frienditto bullshit?

[mangosteen]

Mostly, I think that it's ghoulish, and that if I was the amoral beastie that I was during my undergrad years, I likely would find nothing wrong with it, at all.

Given the (more and more) reasonable assumption that this is being done by the same folks who did ljdrama.org and encyclopedia dramatica, frienditto is their thinly-veiled way of getting more grist for the mill. In short, it's not enough for them to laugh at the people who are in plain sight; locked posts are obviously juicier, and they'd like to laugh at them, too.

Regrettably, it's only a matter of time before something like this happened. The nice folks at LJ have made a couple of things harder to do than they should be, and this includes the ability to archive your entire journal from witihin livejournal.com. Someone filled the niche.

So. Frienditto? Ghoulish and amoral, but inevitable.

microsocial lameness

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

Sorry I missed calling you back -- and now I've misplaced your number -- I've been wrapped up in dealing with two sick (just the usual winter maladies) kids for a while now. Let's give it another try?

Re: microsocial lameness

[mangosteen]

Let's give it another try?

That would be good. It has been a while.

Due to various factors that are possibly best summarized as "hilarity ensues", March is completely booked. April looks reasonably open, though. Send me mail, and we can figure this one out.