Your social self

entertainment

Well-known member
I found some of the music on an old external hard disk the other week and it gave me a nice stroll down memory lane. I thought I had deleted every trace of it.
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
I felt like I only really started to be myself, or be comfortable being myself, in my early twenties when I left high school. I still get kind of shy in some situations, but it's rare.

I was quite awkward around girls through high school. In the three years leading up to it, when you're supposed to start learning the teenage behavior codes, I was hanging out with two other friends, getting high and making hip hop beats in my parents basement, doing a lot of shit that, for me, purposefully did not involve socializing with people of the opposite sex. As the people from my class got further into parties and started having sex, I gravitated further from them, now having missed that train completely.

that sounds similar to my experience. though my middle/high school friends were all STEM nerds who had no common interests with me.

problem is I haven't had what I think is the very normal experience of making plenty of mistakes in high school then starting to turn things around at about 18-20 that you described, entertainment. I'm basically your age and still haven't progressed. haven’t even made friends in college or anything.

there's just sort of a polite distance between me and people I know that never gets crossed, in a good or bad sense. i'm not very socially interesting, and because I know that, I come across as not very socially interested. so its a loop that I'm not sure how to get out of.

reluctant to post this cause it sounds a bit negative but what the hell, might as well overshare slightly. I almost always do the opposite in everyday life.
 
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luka

Well-known member
'Turning it around' to some extent or other is one of those things where it's hard to know how much of it is pull yourself up by the bootstraps self actualisation and how much is just fortuitously finding yourself in the right place at the right time with the right people.

I've had times when I've been very socially isolated totally cut off and I'm not sure I want to blame myself for that. Sometimes you're just surrounded by boring people sometimes it's impossible to find a connection and plug in. Very upsetting. I suppose the usual thing to do would be to move to a big city.
 

luka

Well-known member
And the polite distance would typically get crossed with the aid of drugs/alcohol although this is not obligatory. Sometimes it is recognition of a shared intensity and then communication is established at that frequency. High tension wires.
 

luka

Well-known member
Plenty of people, like me, fall through the gaps, never really being one thing or the other. Too light for heavy work too heavy for light work. You might learn to spot the others by the way they take a step back from the crowd, that assert a bit of distance and observe. Or there might be other signs. All tricky and nerve wracking and upsetting though for sure.
 

luka

Well-known member
You've got a lot of friends though Corpsey. You're socially confident and outgoing.
 

luka

Well-known member
Yeah, that's not nearly as bad as being totally cut off from humanity. That's just one need That's not being met not the whole gamut. You're alright.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I was going to say "I'm pure", as a joke, but it made me think - not having sex is actually befouling to the soul

Look at the incels

Observe them flailing in their piles of sticky Kleenex
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
But obviously the opportunities for conversation are very limited. Also banter can be good if you're in the mood. I did enjoy the pub for a couple of years. The theatre of it.

I loved this. Even with my "normal" mates people I've known for years, who aren't into anything consciously weird, like wot I am, it can be so entertaining when everyone's in the same place. So many big personalities. Doesn't happen much these days so it can lead to "the gang's back together for one last job" feel, sometimes to the detriment of the night. I remember being in the Prince Edward in Stratford and everyone just fucking screaming. at each other, and being really conscious we were the loudest group in the pub by several orders of magnitude. Making people around us uncomfortable. Then one of my mates punched another one in the face. The recipient of the smack (M) had been laying into the other one, saying how obvious it was he wanted to fuck his (M's) wife. Which was funny 'cos it was true. But the truth is hard to bear after 7 Stellas or whatever it was so ... Fun times.

I like these nights 'cos I can surrender completely to being full on geezer which I don't do much anymore. All the sexism and banter comes charging out of the cellar. Sensible me is discarded. I probably laugh more on these nights than I do the rest of the month.
 

luka

Well-known member
Yeah it's great. Unfortunately with most people and groups I know it all turned dark and people turned into alcoholics and addicts and mental cases and that kind of wholesome good natured fun became impossible.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Everyone does fall into slightly hackneyed character positions but there's a comfort in that. Jeff will fall asleep. Paul will have a row. Martin will be a cunt and say something incredibly offensive to someone. I get pigeonholed into my liberal-lefty box. I'd be called "Brains" if we were the Red Hand gang.

Only happens a few times a year now which is probably for the good in a lot of ways.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Yeah it's great. Unfortunately with most people and groups I know it all turned dark and people turned into alcoholics and addicts and mental cases and that kind of wholesome good natured fun became impossible.

Oh yeah, there's that side of it for sure. Too much booze, onto the gear. Violence. Prostitutes with some of 'em. That's why I said it's good it's a bit contained. Fuck knows what'd happen if that was every weekend.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Yeah it's great. Unfortunately with most people and groups I know it all turned dark and people turned into alcoholics and addicts and mental cases and that kind of wholesome good natured fun became impossible.

Tends to go that way when you're on the stronger stuff as well. I think groups of "party mates" only last a few years or so. And you graduate to more normal less intense friendships in some cases.
 

luka

Well-known member
Tends to go that way when you're on the stronger stuff as well. I think groups of "party mates" only last a few years or so. And you graduate to more normal less intense friendships in some cases.

We were talking about this the other day dunno if you remember
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I do, yeah. It's hard to maintain over time 'cos people make different lifestyle choices. Drugs and booz and the reactions to them over time, kids, careers, moving for houses or whatever.

I was just thinking I am different with different groups, perhaps the self is really just contextual. There isn't a real me, just different iterations with different groups. The "me" I mentioned above is probably the least censored and affected but I'm glad I'm not just on that frequency all the time.
 

luka

Well-known member
I've never had a crowd like that but I've watched other people form very intense bonds forged by oversharing and chemical empathy and unearned trust and those groups get very messy as people start to feel overextended and vulnerable. Too much too soon.
 
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