How to fight loneliness...

I was trying to figure out why my post last night was so crappy. I finally decided to deconstruct my day to determine just what left me so uninspired at the end of the day. What I found was quite disturbing. Here it is in detail.

Number of times I left my apartment: Two. First to walk to Panera in order to purchase coffee and a bagel. Second to walk out of my apartment to the mailbox to get my mail. (Ok, I don’t really have another reason to go to my mailbox but I felt that the point should be made.)

People chatted with through internet chat: Two, including one multiple hour conversation.

People chatted with over the phone: One, a recruiter who felt a pressing need for me to explain my weaknesses which, other than kryptonite and the color yellow, do not exist.

People chatted with face to face: One if you count the person who took my coffee and bagel order at Panera. I don’t know if “Do you want cream cheese” technically counts as a conversation.

Now first off let me say that I can’t consider yesterday to be a bad day in the least. I accomplished a lot. I sent off nine more job applications and did a really bang up job on my interview. Plus, I had a lot of fun chatting with a friend of mine online and that was easily the highlight of my evening (which says something when wrestling is on). So it was a full and productive day and I even cooked a real dinner. But wow, was it ever lacking in human contact.

That is probably the biggest reason I have behind needing to start working again. Otherwise I just have to deal with the days in which I do not have a single conversation with a person. Sure, chatting online is nice and even phone calls are cool but those are all just digital representations of people. Given enough advancements in technology it will become impossible to tell if the person on the other end is a person or not. And spending even a day without that basic level of interaction is a serious problem for me.

I also think that it will be a growing problem for society in general. One of the big discussion points surrounding gas prices is if this will lead to more telecommuting. It makes sense: saves money, helps the environment and to be honest, I could have done my job from home ninety percent of the time anyway. The thing is our society is not designed for telecommunting. As much as we hate to say it our jobs are our community. They are the people you see and talk to every day. You talk to your coworkers much more than your neighbors. I’m lucky enough to live in an area where I can walk to a coffee shop but out in the suburbs even that is impossible. What I envision in a world of telecommuters are a bunch of people stranded in their little suburban homes just screaming out for the littlest hint of human interaction.

Yes I got out of my apartment much more today. I still would have liked to have more interactions with real people but some days that just isn’t the case. I’m still my productive and upbeat self. I just need to get into an office. I need to know what is going to happen next. And I really hope this process begins to speed up for me.