I have come to the realisation that for majority of my life, my social life has been artificial. It hasn’t been something I actively pursued, but what I fell into. The people I have spend the most of my spare time with, excluding a few selected ones, have been through school and work, not people I would otherwise necessarily engage with.

Early life

I’m the oldest child of three, the first girl to be born into the family after five boy cousins of mine. I have five aunts, young adults at the time, who were absolutely thrilled to have a baby girl in the family and they all adored me. I was smothered with love and always had company when they were around. Two years after me, I got a baby sister, a little companion of my own, and four years after that, a baby brother.

I grew up in a village of about 60 people, the average age being somewhere around the same number. Most of the cousins lived far away and when the family members weren’t around, I got used to playing a lot by myself, or with the baby siblings. “Friends” wasn’t really even a concept I was aware of, and never remember missing having one. I was more trailing after adults, hence, I think I was pretty mature for my age.

School years

At the age of 7-years-old, I started school in the next village over, that had a lot more kids than our village. I was familiar with some of them from roughly weekly mommy&me -type of things, but school was the first time I got friends. Still, I lived far away from most of them, so after school playdates and hanging with the neighbourhood kids was a thing I was only vaguely aware of.

From the early school years, all up until I was about 16, and finished the legally required schooling, there wasn’t much choice of people. Your school mates were your friends, some you liked more, others less, but you really didn’t have much choice. I think around 13 to 16 years, I started to realise that other people have friendships outside the school, something I didn’t have much.

I had a strict upbringing, which I am grateful for, and there wasn’t anyone to drive me around to meet friends 20 kilometres away. Of course I had some social life, and by that time, there was already internet and cellphones to keep in touch with people.

Behold, social media!

I think I was 16 when I really started to get into social media, at its early stages, and realised there are a lot more people in the world and I could actually make contacts outside the little town I lived in. More people to pick and choose from, even some that got me.

I can still name at least 5 people I got to know through social media when I was 16, and am still in regular contact with.

Big City Life

When I finished school in my town, and moved to the city to attend a culinary school, at the age of 19, a whole new world opened to me. There are people in here! Granted, this is an average size Finnish city, but remember, I come from the village of 60 people.

Yet, when I had all these new people, my social circle mostly revolved around my new school mates and the next year, colleagues. I still wasn’t used to the fact that I could actually see people when ever, hang out after school and on the weekends.

I did do my fair share of bar hopping and all that, but I was never as social as the majority of the people seemed to be. I went to school, I went to work, I was seeing people there, and when I got home, I liked to be alone a lot.

Workworkwork

I was in the normal workforce for six and a half years, and my social circle was almost exclusively limited to people who also worked in bars and restaurants. Most of the restaurant workers in this city know each other and hang out in the same groups, day in and day out.

I was never actively seeking a social life outside the confines of people that just happened to come my way, usually through work. Some I liked, a lot I didn’t, but they were in the same circle, a package deal. A lot of people I hanged out with was because I had to act civil around them because I would also have to work with them. Some I despised to a degree that I would leave a gathering because I wanted to have no contact with them if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. That was for their best, because I have a taste for blood.

I have a lot of acquaintances I have gathered over the years, so called lukewarm friendships where if we happen to see each other, we exchange a few words, but I don’t actively seek their company.

More social on social media

Like a duplicate chain, a double life, from the age of 16, I always had a very strong presence in social media, along with the real life friends. I have always formed meaningful friendships much more easier on the internet than in real life.

The only constant friend from real life, since being a teenager, to this day and forward, has been @escapist. And that bitch moved to the capital city couple months ago, some 400 kilometres away! We of course still talk and text, but it’s not the same as having almost daily three hour coffee and rant -sessions.

What now?

I’m not sure yet if this a blessing or a curse, but for the first time in my life, I am free from any and all social contacts I don’t want to have. No work mates, no school friends, only the people I truly want to see. Of course I have my family members too, who I see fairly often, but none live in the same city.

I have dear dear internet friends, most acquired through Steemit, some I know in real life too, but of course we live all over the world.

So what now? What do I do? Do I have to actively seek friends? How does one do it? How does one make friends!? Do I even want friends? I have more questions that answers. You will probably try to give me helpful tips that will work for normal people, but I’m afraid they might not work for me. I am an acquired taste, and I have an acquired taste. I’m doomed!

_{Ps. thank god @roelandp for Steemfest that is soon, there I will see a lot of people I actually really want to hang out with!}