Social Needs

 I'm learning a lot about myself these days. Maybe it's just my ability to see patterns in things, draw conclusions, take notes - reframe and then try and understand stuff at a high level. Although not immediately applicable to say, socialising it definitely applies to almost everything in my life - it's how my mind works, to join the dots (some of the time). 

A little bit of pre-amble, I've spoken about this on Twitter before;

It's a bit of a thread, but the important bit here is I am a very analytical person, I need to understand things/explain them/join the dots. I'm fairly useless at accepting baseless facts, I need to understand the reason why.. even if the answer is "because that's the way it is" I don't like that, but I can deal with the fact some things happen because they do. 

So my mind is collecting all this information, drawing lines between it and I find that fascinating as I can see a lot of overlap. It's like drawing a picture by numbers and you can suddenly see what the picture is even though you've not finished drawing it yet? If that makes sense. 

Anyway, it means I really enjoy rich engagement with people on topics I have a lot of interest in, discussion, knowledge sharing, experiences the lot. It stimulates my mind and I feel really fulfilled from it, that kind of mental engagement. 

For example, I was (as anyone that knows me at the moment - I am obsessed with Polestar and have one on order) walking past the Polestar shop in the Trafford Center (it's always in my walk path - as I walk through John Lewis to get in) and they had one of their new concept cars in there, doing the rounds across the country. Now I'm usually either "popping in" because I can't help but ogle the cars anyway, but I've been in loads and wasn't going to as there was things I needed to do in the Trafford centre and it was.. 4:30 on a Sunday. Back to the car.. there was their new Precept car (think Model S/or even Roller competition 2+2 car, big luxury car) and a guy standing with it that was a prototype engineer.

Well... I lost 90 minutes talking to him hah. I say lost, like I've lost a part of my life but my goodness he was fascinating to talk to. We was talking about engineering, high-voltage electrics, aero, F1, Ford pushrod engines.. the lot - just jumping between topics as there was lots of overlap/things to chat about.

Just the most rewarding, engaging contact I've had with someone for a while and we wasn't even chatting for long.. (well I guess 90m in a shop is a long time - you get what I mean) but was just deeply interesting. Now this post isn't about him, but is about that engagement and that experience. 

How do I even get, a small % of that experience day to day? My bestie stimulates me like that (get your mind out of the gutter) and we chat about lots of things like that, as well as life stuff.. basically any kind of complex concept, service, technology, engineering etc. As I deeply enjoy that and It makes me feel so good to have that mental stimuli, but it is something very hard to find I think.

There's not meant to be any judgment here (I mean this sincerely, if you hear judgement in my writing then it's not that, it's my opinion and no judgement has entered my mind during this) but I don't think it's something I can get from the average person, and I both understand and expect that. But then that also precludes getting that from an average conversation and thus an average social event. Now I'm not some boring, dry person who only talks about engineering and climate change (just a finger in the air topic) but I need deep engaging conversation. 

That ain't gonna happen in a night out in the village. God, I am having enough problems just trying to get my basic social needs from going out and by that I mean just talking. Most people want to go out to dance, and we end up in bars where the music is so loud I can't hear the other person talk over it (It's why I am obsessed with this idea of going to a wine bar!).

I just think my social needs are different than the average person in my age bracket. Going out is much more about rubbing shoulders with new people and not about dancing all night, I want to talk to people - I've been in the house all week, away from other human beings and I want that interaction.. not to shut down and dance all night. If I needed that, I'd put some music on at home and work to it (if I'm doing something repetitive that doesn't require investigatory thought) - there's absolutely a place for that but it's not very high up on my needs (used to do Creamfields, which I have opinions on, and I liked that - that was all about the music)

This is a real conundrum for me, as I pivot away from the all-night drinking that was in my 20s and socialising meant getting drunk. Covid and my age changed that, but I'm not unhappy about that - I favour much more stimulating experiences as I mentioned above - it's just how I fulfil that need when those in my age group are still partying like they did in their 20s* (I've got more to say on this in a bit).

I'm pivoting away from my old social grounds of the village, trying to interact with people more surrounding my interests (tech, baking, gym stuff, engineering, physics you know whatever) and build friends that way, lean into my interests and do things surrounding them. Some of them overlap with my old, village-first thought process (like the Village Bakers, they meet up once a month all bring a bake a long and have a coffee and a chat and that's something I'm going to be doing regularly) but others such as.. maybe.. solar or electric cars well they obviously don't. IT does a bit, but most people (me included, some days) don't want to talk about work while they're out. 

So I am slowly leaving behind, some of the people I've met in the past (no malice) through drinking, or going out and favouring people who I've got more of a connection or shared interest with. That's tough, but I think it will be more rewarding for me in the longer term - it takes me out of the village eco-sphere and makes me interact more with the outside world (I am absolutely going to an electric car meet when that's on and I've got the car) there are just periods in time now where I'm not sure who to invest in.

Another tweet, but this is also important.. and I thought/tweeted this while I was standing in the middle of a club event in Liverpool as it's another challenge to all.. this;

This makes me look aloof, and I guess it is perhaps absolutely that - but there is no answer to this. I don't have the energy, I'm not going to find the energy - I have enough on my plate already so I just need to work around this. Maybe this will "right" itself when I've got more engaging interactions around myself, but for now this is very much still the case. 

It's worth me mentioning, I have a core-group of friends who are very close to me and none of the above applies to them.. except for perhaps the engaging/making plans bit which applies to basically everyone.

*Coming back to partying in your 20's, rolling into your 30s. You have to bear in mind, I have spent 10 years with a myriad of mental health problems, body image issues, eating disorders the lot. A lot of this stopped me functioning as a normal person and kept me from doing the things others would consider normal, I especially stopped drinking completely for a period in time because it was affecting my gym performance and I was very serious about it at the time. I've had years of bad sleep through anxiety, which seem to have righted itself with a rigid bed-time sleeping pattern and being careful of what I eat/drink near bed time - I spent years being exhausted, barely having the energy to function (and subsequently eating myself into a new dimension for energy) so that also affected my ability to get up, go-out and do things.

I sort of mourned for the loss of my youth when I was in my late 20s, I had realised that I had spent a lot of it being an anxious mess (but had still achieved a great deal with my life) as my best friend who I leaned on for almost all of my social experiences stopped drinking and stopped partying (none of this is his fault, and he had reasons for that too) so there was a gap that was never filled with anything afterwards. 

My mind says to me, when are you going to loosen up and enjoy yourself? You've spent the last 10 years driving your goals very hard (which has paid off) but you've got little enjoyable experiences to really lean on and look back on ~ this.. this.. THIS! is the reason why the above plays on my mind. 

So as per usual, there are opposing forces in me trying to work out what the best path is - but the voice in my head, mentioned in the paragraph above is much quieter.. I am busy just chasing after the things I enjoy, and I am absolutely OK with that. I just have to learn to manage letting go of friendships that I didn't have a very strong connection with to begin with, or I was friends with because they spoke to me and that is not me walking away from them that's them not investing in me, maybe a little bit of me not investing in them too. 

But if the future is full of rich, deep engagements like the guy from Polestar I am absolutely here for it.


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