Getting bored more and more easily. Antsy, even. My acquaintances are, for the most part, not interested in me enough to pull me out of my doldrums; just sitting within earshot of them while I stare at my phone is perhaps the most painful way to spend my time. So I typically do the Irish exit and just leave. Grab my bag and go. No goodbyes. Not worth it.
If you live in Austin, and you want to be alone, this town will happily ignore you. Even if you don’t want to be alone, it will still happily ignore you. You have to bring something to the table and be a producer of something just to lift yourself up to the level of “hey, you’re alright, have a beer.”
It’s an ill fit for a guy like me who came up in a town where you were judged not by what you did, but what you could possibly do, what you might be capable of. The rest of the world doesn’t operate like that, but too late to relearn.
At any rate, by straddling across many, many social circles, I find myself lost and forgotten in the middle, not really central enough in any circle to be missed if I’m gone a while. Generally, if someone’s disappeared, they’re obviously doing something else with their time and are busy. Doesn’t matter if nothing is happening and your phone hasn’t rung in weeks, or there hasn’t been a knock on your door in months, or nobody’s held you in years.
You’re obviously busy and OK somewhere else; out of sight and out of mind.
So, lacking the influx of any motivation or breath of life from those in my periphery, I do random shit like drive for two hours in unexplored corners of the next county over, or throw myself into radio, or get drunk and buy new music, or rent movies, or read books in bars, etcetera, etcetera. Something, anything, to keep me from chewing my own face off. Because I’m not getting that stimulation from anybody else. No connection, no inspiration, no interest, no purpose.
It really deflates everything I do.