お楽しみはこれからだ！

So the past couple of weeks I've been able to experience a taste of what life would be like if I was a house spouse, and man I could get used to this. Since realizing that I am both not a woman and not interested in having relationships with straight men, I've allowed myself the fantasy of what could be if I were able to be a homemaker. When I was younger, the idea of being a stay at home wife repulsed me, but cooking and cleaning for my partner and taking care of my animals would make me feel very happy and fulfilled.

Since the move, my partner basically had to start work immediately after, and I ended up having about a month to get things sorted before I have to start. The idea of starting work is fine and all, but wow I've been loving the solitude of just being at home alone for most of the day with only the cats as my company. I've been able to get so much done and I've had a lot of time to cook too, which has made me really happy cause it's something I'm really passionate about. I think ideally, I would enjoy if only one of us needed to work and I could be the homemaker, but I don't think that will be possible for a very long time. I literally cannot fathom a reality where a household could be supported on just one income in the US, and it wasn't even that long ago that that was the norm. At least we don't and will never have human children, so that will make this dream more achievable at some point.

While having this time to cook and clean *insert outdated Killing Stalking meme here*, I've been able to catch up with a lot of video essays and podcasts and audiobooks I haven't been able to listen to in a long ass time. One of the video essays I really enjoyed was "Autism, Anxiety & Misanthropy" by Ponderful. This was a really personal reflection on the three topics mentioned, and a lot of the experiences she mentions throughout the video resonated with me, though I have to admit I think I have more misanthropic traits than she does. I've thought a lot about why my dream in life is to basically stay at home and be domestic in a standalone house away from the immediate proximity of people other than my partner, and I do think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am very easily overstimulated and do not like having to navigate a lot of social situations in a day (which is really ironic considering my previous job). I think there are a lot of social situations where I panic if I do not already have a predetermined script for how this interaction will go when having to speak face-to-face with a stranger or acquaintance. Hell, I even feel this way around friends sometimes because I'm scared I'll say or do something that will be misunderstood and isolated because of it. Or that someone will say or do something and I won't know how to react. So I guess I find the idea of voluntary solitude more comforting than humiliating isolation. Don't get me wrong, I do like being around others, but I think I have a lot of anxiety around social situations in general. Added to it is the super fun perk of having PTSD flight or freeze responses, which make me pretty hyper-vigilant and super fun to be around at parties (sarcasm)! I just do not trust other people enough to really want to engage in or be a part of society much, so it's been really freeing to just be on my own for a lot of the day. It's a fucking miracle I guess that I haven't felt like this around my partner. I don't know what it takes for me to not feel like this around others, but I guess it's some magic combination of knowing the way to communicate with me and also tolerating and reciprocating infodumping at one another lol.

Anyway, I'd been thinking about this video too because I've been listening to Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (which has been a very interesting read), and there was one part of this book I really couldn't agree with at all, as it felt very unaware of the ways a lot of neurodivergent people tend to communicate. There was a chapter all about what he understands as being high-quality conversation (I think he called it "communication centered conversation"), which essentially is conversation had in-person, over the phone, or a video call. He basically felt as though any text-based communication was sub-par and unfulfilling of what he believes to be worthwhile. He seemed more focused on the sort of engagement that I also find very shallow and unfulfilling--likes, reactions, and very short comments on social media posts. However, he also verged into discrediting the worth of texts and instant messaging, which I couldn't relate to at all. Nearly all of my most worth-while friendships and acquaintanceships have taken place via online messages. Hell, I befriended and courted my partner through messages on Tumblr nearly a decade ago. I've always felt like I communicate my clearest through text, and it doesn't have the same caveats of being emotionally and physically draining to me like in-person or verbal conversations can be. Have I been able to befriend people offline? Yes. But as I mentioned previously, it is a grueling process that I find more frustrating than fulfilling in the long run, and I think I've really only had success befriending others that are also (likely) ND.

At the same time, I understand where he's coming from. I've found myself more and more disengaged and disinterested in what social media has become. It seems to be much more instant-gratification focused, and something about that makes me feel isolated in a way that I don't like online. There's something about the surface-level sorts of "conversations" (more like talking at one another, really), that I find really, for lack of a better word, repulsive. Maybe it's because of how detached I am from those younger than me, but I really do not like the sorts of communities where people just seem to not understand how to engage with one another. Like they'll just post about something they bought and then another person will talk about something they bought, but they won't actually have a conversation about it. Or they'll announce that they did something without really ever meaning to have a chat about it; they simply just wanted to announce that to a captive audience and hope to get some Discord reactions from others. They seem satisfied enough with the illusion of a conversation, which to some degree disturbs me for reasons I've had trouble placing. And unfortunately, this seems to have become the norm in a majority of online spaces, on and off Discord, Twitter, etc. It's like all online communication is being treated with the same effort and energy as microblogging. And don't get me wrong, I think microblogging has its place, but for some reason it feels offensive in areas where communication is expected with others as to respect them as your peer. Now that I've thought about it for a bit, I think what disturbs me about this is that I do not like being thought of as an audience when I'm trying to just have a conversation with someone in an online social setting. It's making me feel as though I'm subscribed to someone rather than being in what is essentially modernized IRC. It's like the concept of a chatroom has been lost and replaced with this sort of weird, superficial posting that only results in engagement reactions rather than actual conversation. And I'm honestly not sure what can be done to fix it. I just don't feel like a lot of people regard others' humanity when speaking to one another online anymore and that's really what disturbs me about all of this. People aren't sharing things with one another anymore to relate and connect with each other; instead, they're just imitating and reenacting the way we've been groomed to interact to please a companies engagement quotas for advertisers.

I don't want to and will not give up on online communication being the best way for me to have conversations with others. I still believe that there are a lot of others out there like me that haven't had their online social skills ruined by blue social media machines. But at the same time, it saddens me that so many people seem to have given up on online communication as a means of having meaningful conversations with others. In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy my voluntary seclusion for another week before needing to return to having a lot of conversations with IRL people, but these two texts I mentioned have left me with a lot to think about with regards to ways I interact with others and what I view as meaningful and worthwhile. I'm going to try to finish Digital Minimalism later this week and see if I come away from it with any deeper thoughts as to ways to solve this problem. No wonder so many people feel so totally and utterly lonely when they can't even have a simple conversation with another, be it in-person or online.

02.12.23
( nerd alert )