people are hard, and so am i

I’m difficult to get along with. It’s hard to become friends with me. It’s hard to make small talk with me. I know I’m not the only person I’ve just described, but I’m one of them. It’s not that I’m insufferable (I hope) or that I’m angry and bitter or live to make people’s lives harder; I’m not trying to be difficult to get along with…it’s just that all the usual “common ground” doesn’t hold up with me.

• I don’t like games. I don’t play chess anymore. A few years back I realized that the only reason I played Minecraft was to chat with people (and obviously that scene isn’t what it used to be)
• My music tastes are generally pretty…vanilla, nothing to talk about with “music people”
• I don’t watch TV, I don’t have TV, I don’t like most TV (all this goes for YouTube and Twitch and whatnot too)
• I don’t read books (heck, I don’t even read manuals if I can avoid it)
• I don’t drink (yet), smoke hurts me, drugs are not for me
• Sports are boring, and I’m not athletic or interested in becoming so
• I don’t have Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok… I actually use my email a fair amount. That’s pretty sad, innit
• Strangers make me anxious; crowds and noise stress me out
• Current events, politics, news in general, I actively avoid these

One of the motd’s at the bottom of this site is something like, “It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I can’t and don’t want to.” Could I change any of these things about me? Maybe, some of them, maybe…but like, I don’t really want to.

• I could analyze some indie bands’ music and hold a technical discussion about their styles, but I have no interest in doing so
• I can learn the rules of a sport and make informed commentary and cheer at the right times, but…why
• I could waste my time keeping up with jones_384 on social medium xyz, oh my god can you believe they tweeted that? they got ratio’d so hard. what an L. No thanks, I’m good
• I could…read the news…but I can’t fix any of it…and I’m just gonna stress out over it and be frustrated and sad. I’ll pass
• I do watch some anime, but apparently I exceeded the normal healthy dosage a long time ago without noticing, so I try not to go there

I like doing CAD, I like neat science things (to some extent), I like stuff that works, I like good design, I like quiet places, I like damp green forests, and I like problem solving. I like my friends too! If only I could actually visit them :( But when was the last time you casually talked about optimizing a workflow for some project? Or chatted with a friend about the safety implications of some furniture they’re looking at? If this sounds like your kind of fun, well, maybe we should hang out. Somewhere quiet.