How do you find a “social hobby”?
When a person has problems with communication, or with the opposite sex, or is lonely, has no friends – they are advised to find a social hobby. I generally agree with this, I really like this advice, but I don’t know how to apply it to myself. Maybe someone here will see opportunities for me that I myself do not see? Well, maybe?
I will briefly try to describe the conditions of my life.
I am married with a 4-year-old daughter. She goes to kindergarten. Leave her with no one in particular, my mom sometimes stays with her, but she works two jobs, my husband also works a lot, as do I. At the weekend he can take the child. I work five days a week. I live in a very small town, well, 30 thousand. I do not know anybody here. I go to work to a neighboring town, which is also small, but I grew up there, and I have a couple of friends from my childhood, from my youth. But I can’t communicate with them as much as I would like to, and there are no common themes. They also have small children, our interests have become very different with age, we see each other rarely, and more often than not there is no need for either them or me. At work, I have a mostly female team of retirement age. There are also young people, but they work in other departments, they are engaged in other things, and we also have nothing much to talk about. At work, we say hello, we talk about business, that’s all. I communicate with my direct colleagues who are quite a few years old, and we are even kind of friends with one of them (like we give presents on holidays, visit them sometimes), but there are some age peculiarities which make communication with them tiresome, it certainly can’t be called a true friendship, and there are very few common interests. What else I am fond of. I go to the pool.
But it’s very difficult to call it a social hobby, it’s sorry, an asocial hobby.
I come, undress, swim, go, where is the place for communication? I also take part in amateur competitions (I’ve done it twice, and I’m planning to do it again), but it’s pretty much the same scheme. I come, I swim, waiting for the awards, awards, it’s a lot of fun, but communicate with each other like those who came together, or I just think so, but I do not know how to make conversation. At one time I also went to yoga, but there it was the same as in the pool, during yoga do not communicate, and after – in the locker room, taking off one pair of pants and put on another? Somehow it didn’t work out either. Once I went to one course in the capital. It does not matter what kind of courses, but it lasted two days from morning to evening, and there was a lot of physical interaction with each other. That was where I communicated, it was the most real “social hobby”, and I realized how feral I was there, how scared I was of people (but I was cool with them, fun, I was attracted to them), how difficult it was for me to say two words, how I got hot and cold when a stranger approached me… horror. I would go again, but these courses cost money, and they are all short, for 2-3 days, that is, it’s like a one-time action, and long-term acquaintance so will not start. In general, before any activity, perhaps, except pool and yoga, I have to go to the capital. I am ready to go, but of course not very often, my schedule is pretty tight, and I can not afford to make big monetary investments.
Yes, and finally, why do I need this very social hobby.
First of all I just feel lonely. I don’t socialize much with people, I just want to talk to someone other than my husband and mother, not to talk heart-to-heart, not to discuss some intimacy, but just to small took, make jokes, etc. That being said, I don’t have the skill to communicate. I see this when I have to communicate with unfamiliar people, I get very embarrassed, I speak out of turn, I don’t like it, I want to communicate freely. I want to communicate, but I don’t know how to do it, I can learn how to communicate only in the process of communication, but I have nowhere and no one to communicate with, somehow. I remember in my early youth, even before marriage, I loved the movement, partying, but there was a circle of communication, where there was always something to chat about, we studied at the same faculty and had common interests, we went somewhere together… But there’s no contact with them all now, they have their own lives, and they don’t live where I do. So what should I do? Do you have any ideas?
