Year 28: In Search of Community

[oboegoddess]

I'm 28 now. Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Facebook, Livejournal, in person, etc. I had a small and lovely gathering of people over on Saturday to do a "Host a Mystery" game, which was lots of fun. I was kind of disappointed that a couple of people didn't show up, but we made it work and I really enjoyed spending time with the

Comments

[sedeara]

I've had similar struggles -- I've often lived apart from my closest friends and family, and I spent most of my adult live single, so I was constantly searching and yearning for community. And I *did* live in a cooperative! It was an artist cooperative where we were required to do service hours and serve on committees, all of which should have fostered community -- but even then, my introversion made it hard for me to reach out.

One year, I *really* pushed myself outside my comfort zone. I had to, because my two best friends in town had both moved away, and I literally had no one with whom I was close. I did form a nice little community, but even that was short-lived as people moved out of the cooperative or became emotionally unavailable as their lives got busy.

Now, I'm in a relationship and feel that I'm probably in danger of just being "absorbed" into my boyfriend's group of friends, who seem to have formed a fairly cohesive community centered around geekdom. And while a part of me is grateful for the "ready-made community," I also really long for one that I can call my own, that I had a hand in building. But I think our culture being so individualistic, and people being so wrapped up in their own lives (I'm no exception), makes that really hard.

[oboegoddess]

Yeah, I feel similarly about wishing I had a community to call my own. I actually find it harder when I'm in a relationship to find community than when I'm single in some ways. When I'm single, I have to reach out to other people if I want company at all, whereas when I'm in a relationship, it gets too easy to just be with my partner and depend on them for all of my social needs. I do not want to become someone who has no life or friends outside of my partner!