Wear gloves when using chicken wire. Darn piece of wire went right under the fingernail of my fretting hand pointer finger, and I have to play today and tomorrow morning.
YOWCH!!! Wow. That's nasty. Hope you experience some miraculous healing about now.
Man I really feel for you as I feel like i'm in a very similar boat as you. I think a lot more people then you think are in a similar situation as us. I also figure that life simply isn't going to be easy/comfortable most of the time and that's just the way it is. I think almost everyone - every person I see out there on the street has some sort of demon they are fighting weather it's insecurities, loneliness, abuse, physical pain, etc. and I figure they are all just trying to do the best they can.
Although this isn't necessarily going to fill the void of loneliness, I feel like making other people happy has made me happier which made me feel less lonely. I don't know about you but the happier I am the less lonely I feel. Even small gestures like smiling or nodding to a stranger on the street makes me feel good because I know that when a stranger acknowledges me on the street I feel good as well. So give and take.
This is a good point. I do some AA service work, I do smile at people I encounter on my walks, and I have invited many folks from church (not all at once!) to my home for a meal, coffee, dessert etc in hopes to begin to build relationships. To a one, they have all been happy to come and seemed to have a good time. They thank me and leave. While I don't have the explicit expectation that they will reciprocate, I did anticipate that this would be a building block to... something else, even if it's just an extra smile coming my way at church the next week.
Nope! Nobody has reciprocated, nobody has sent a text later to say 'Hey that was fun.' Huh. Well wait, that's not true: I invited one couple and they did follow up with thanks later, but during the meal one of them said, 'We've been going to this church for over six months, and you as another new person are the only one to invite us for a meal, coffee, join them at a restaurant, anything.' And I was talking to a very active lifetime member the other day about someone who has gone to the church for a year, and the lifetime member had vaguely heard her name but had no idea who she was. Come on. There's 80 people in the room. Go meet some folks. Get out of your own little tiny world.
So I know this isn't just me. And I get that this isn't the 1970s, when people hung out more with each other's families. But the only people in this town who are at all friendly to me are other recent transplants. Eventually there may be enough of us that we'll change the culture of this place, but for now it's pretty lonely. I don't believe that the locals intend to be rude. I think they just don't know that other places have different norms.
Which brings up a point: is it then up to me to just suck it up and get used to the norms here? Apparently the norms include not being neighborly, not being friendly, staying in one's own bubble. I'm not sure my mental health will be ok with that.
Well, at least you've got us here on TB!
Admittedly I wouldn't recommend taking some of the advice on here too seriously (for one thing, some damn fools seem to think Tuna Noodle Casserole is a valid food choice) but there's lots of friendly and helpful folks...some of whom I'm quite sure would be happy to even drop by and give a hug.
TNC is an abomination. Now that that's out of the way, I will say that for my first nine or ten months here, you guys were ALL I had. This was the only place I could come to interact with people who were pleasant. This place kept me from completely losing my mind and from being utterly alone. That's no small thing.
Good luck playing thru it
