Many of us find ourselves confused by the lack of social buzz in our lives once we become adults. Our once busy social lives which had, in our younger years, revolved around school friends, camp friends and neighborhood friends have suddenly become fixed in time. We rush to work and barely socialize with anyone there for there is not enough time and, if there is, it's not appropriate to the workplace, then rush home to socialize with our families or at least do our daily chores with and for them, get some sleep, wake up, and do it all over again.
Within the scope of these daily activities many of us crave alone time. We are so busy serving the needs of our obligations, even if we adore our jobs and our families or significant others, that we just fantasize endlessly about time alone at the sea, or even taking in a movie on our own.
Flip this on its head and you may discover that while we do need and often crave downtime by ourselves to recharge our batteries, we also crave and need the company of doing real things with real people. The trick of it is to find the situation and the person or people you feel really at home and comfortable with, so that being with them and doing things with them boosts your morale, your energy level, your love of life and your spirit, rather than draining it all away.
Social networking and computer friendships have largely replaced real hanging out time or face-to-face time with actual human beings. We tend to speak to one another in short commercial sound bites and, while hopefully we're still a generation away from actually saying "OMG, LOL" to one another as a replacement for actually laughing (although it may be closer than a generation to tell the truth), we are still depriving our souls of a sort of tribal oxygen when we rush to our computers to get "alone time" by spinning out of control on facebook instead of meeting up with friends.
Part of the problem is the busy-ness of life and another is money. Of course not many of us can wine and dine with friends on a regular basis these days, nor can we afford to host wonderfully delicious dinner parties.
But even forcing yourself to call someone instead of texting them, meeting them at a beach and taking a walk, or going to a thrift store or a museum -- this doesn't have to be expensive but you may find yourself feeling less anxious and stressed out after having spent actual time with an actual person or group of people than just tuning them all out after all. In reality, we need precious time to ourselves. But we need each other, too.
Edited by Jody Smith
Aimee Boyle lives and writes in CT. She is a regular contributor to EmpowHER.