Volunteered to work a evening shift at work alone and I've tried to keep myself too occupied to think about it, but it keeps creeping up. I feel more and more isolated from the world, less and less connected.
There is a guy at work that is in a local band. I've gone to see his band a few times and heard from him they were playing. I immediately got excited about the idea and told him I'd try to come. They were planning to play in a pretty sketchy bar on Friday and then on a stage by a Mexican food restaurant in an equally sketchy part of town. I love going to dive bars, biker bars and industrial area breweries. It's just kind of my vibe, the lower class areas, where no one cares what you wear or what you look like.
So my continued problem is that I have no friends in this town (moved here a few years ago for work). I love going to concerts, and I have tried many times to go alone, but it's just not fun. I meet people, they disappear. I go and can't even get drunk, because I'm too responsible to drive home drunk. I reason with myself that I shouldn't go to the bar venue on Friday because I have to work Saturday morning, but I try to convince myself to go to the Saturday show. Saturday rolls around and I can't get over how lame I am, going to concerts by myself and my inability to make friends. I end up not going.
Now I've been thinking about how lame it's going to be when I come back to work on Tuesday and probably run into the guy that's in the band. He'll probably ask me why I didn't go to either show. I'll probably just lie and say I was tired to not state the obvious, that I have no friends and am sick of trying to make friends and sick of going to concerts alone.
I've tried to make friends at work and it usually goes like this. I invite people to go get a drink and get told they are busy. I heard that the dude in the band was playing in the next town over playing with some real scummy punk bands, sounded awesome. I asked if I could just catch a ride with him and his friends. They very politely basically said there was no room in their cars. Honestly it was pretty heart breaking and ego breaking. I don't think I tried to be friendly to anyone at work since that happened.
I kind of feel like I'm held hostage by my own inadequacy. When I was in the military there were always guys around ready to party or hang out. It's been pretty terrible adapting to being a regular joe civilian worker. But if I'm this bad at making friends maybe I always was and the military just had a bunch of people that had no other choice than to be my friend. Maybe it was my rank that was the only reason people hung around. Maybe it was a fluke.
I can't seem to make friends down here. Every person I meets just wants something and don't really want anything to do with me. The dude in the band is just marketing for his music. The people I've played magic card or Warhammer with just want to play a game and bounce. The people at meet at bars or concerts just want conversation for that moment.
I really wanted to go see the new Top Gun movie when it came out, but my wife had no interest and I assumed my daughter was too young to see it. So I waited and waited. I didn't want to be the one dude at the movies by himself. I don't really care what people think about me on most cases, but I'm not really a fan of people feeling sorry for me. I did eventually see it but it was on demand and at home, I really wish I had seen it in Imax. All the guys from work saw it and were talking about it. I thought about asking if anyone wanted to go see it, but I had a fear. One no one would go with me and I'd feel like shit. I'm still pretty sure that is what would have happened.
I recently bought a Nintendo switch bundle with games to resell. I gave the switch to my daughter to upgrade her pocket switch for a full sized switch. I kept a few games. One of them being Octopath Traveler, a Square Enix pixel RPG. I've been enjoying it a lot. I guess at some point in your life you just switch to single player games as you become to obscure for the general populous.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm really just super autistic or have Asperger's or something. I have a lot of trouble relating and fitting in with people. I don't think people are really offended by my presence, but I don't think anyone would like to be friends with me outside of what they feel obligated to deal with me. I'm a pretty blunt person, so I'm sure some think I'm an asshole, but at least I'm honest. I think it's possible I'm super autistic and just learned to adapt to pretending to be normal.
It just sucks being lonely all the time, and thinking that doing things would be fun if I had some dudes to hand out with. I'm beginning to feel depressed every time I watch a show and see two friends hanging out. I start feeling like shit. Like damn, this is what normal people do, what the fuck is wrong with me?