Wednesday, September 3, 2014

To hermit or not to hermit

I am going back to school this year – please, hold your applause, I’ve already changed career directions – and as the summer ends and the new semester starts, I can’t help but think about my current, and most common, social situation. I make an excellent hermit, but a shitty social butterfly. Sometimes I just want to sit on the couch in my PJs and binge watch Rookie Blue, and by sometimes, I mean everyday. It’s not hard to fall into this kind of a social slump when all of your friends are settling into domestic bliss; when there’s no one left to go bar hopping with, you have to stay in, right?

The real question is: do you keep being social, meeting new people, new guys, in the hopes that you can find someone to sit on the couch with and binge watch TV? Because that just kind of seems like backwards thinking; socialize to reach your end goal of mutual hermitism. (That’s something I just made up entirely, as hermitism isn’t even a real word, but I feel like I can provide enough evidence to make it legit.) I realized that my particular hermitism – this is becoming a thing, just watch – had reached critical levels when my mother forced me to go to a frosh week party to “meet people” and “make some friends”. Now don’t misunderstand that; I have plenty of friends, and by plenty I mean a handful. But my social awkwardness has reached an almost deadly state that my mom feels the need to push me into social situations I’m not comfortable with. To clarify, the social situations I’m not comfortable with are any situations involving myself and any number of people I don’t know when I don’t have the comfort of my job in the way. And I know what you’re thinking, that sounds like every social situation; and you would be right. That’s how good of a hermit I am.

Now that we’ve cleared up my hermit skills and lack of social skills, we can get back to the real question: is it worth it to subject yourself to social situations in the hopes of meeting a fellow hermit whose mother sent them out to meet friends? On second thought, two of those people in one friendship or relationship sounds like a nightmare; if you’re anything like me, try to find someone with even an ounce of people skills so you two don’t become serial killers together. I know that seems extreme, but with all the crime shows I watch, I’m fairly certain that’s how serial killer friendships are made. I wouldn’t risk it if I were you. I digress.


Yes, maybe, perhaps, every now and then it is worth it to meet people out of your circle and comfort zone so you have some normal friends. Although, who am I to give advice when most of my friends are coworkers (all of my friends) and most of my dates are customers I hit on; I’m not a creep, they love it. But speaking from experience, you rarely meet cute guys laying in bed or sitting on the couch, and if you do, call the police because they’re strangers and shouldn’t be there. You also don’t make friends in pajamas and sweat pants, the hermit’s uniform. If your plan is to live alone with bunches of cats – no judgment, that sounds lovely – use this post as a hermit reference guide, and feel free to post your questions, as I’m quite an expert (also, see every other post with the word ‘cat’ in it, as they are all helpful how-to’s on becoming a lonely hermit, just read between the lines). But if that doesn’t happen to be your plan, which is probably the better choice of the two, so good job, then I would highly suggest hanging up your hermit clothes once every week or two, put on some jeans and go somewhere with lots of people, i.e. a bar, a party, the train, school, the street, the dog park (dog people will never die alone, not like cat people), or anywhere else you see a gathering of people. Just make sure it’s not a gang or cult, because those are not the people you want to associate with. And if those are the only gatherings you know of, put your sweats back on and immediately revert back to hermitism because you’ve already made too many poor choices.

No comments:

Post a Comment