Yeah it's hard to meet new people

yeah, i mostly have made friends at work since i moved away from Big City but that's really not great, most of the people I work with are libs and we're more isolated than ever since everyone basically works from home now (which tbh is really good for me)

I don't want to deal with libs either at this stage, I have had my fill of trying to mingle with them

I can understand that completely. I still have to deal with them for work unfortunately.

There's no real motivation other than it would be maybe nice to know other people but then I don't really want to go some places where there's no masking and such with people.

I feel that way too. I don't really like going "out," especially not since the "end" of the pandemic... a lot of stuff even some of my friends are into is not something i want? TTRPGs not really for me, or playing most online games, I can play board games once a month but the math (and other things) is exhausting, and I feel pressured to people-please so hard (I guess this feeling is the opposite of yours) that I can quickly get burnt out when people want to do things or when one of my friends wants to do a 1am board game, I'm terrible at setting boundaries and being assertive with people that I'm close to (except my partner, of course, he's great).

I want so bad to get to a place where the people around me actually understand my needs and I can interact with them without feeling the need to mask, even if that means different friends. I want to be able to disagree with people when I, well, disagree with them, instead of bending myself to fit the mould of the people around me and avoiding any conflict, and I want friends that can tolerate that, who I can truly Combat Liberalism with, you know? When someone says something that sucks, I want to be able to tell them that it sucked, instead of stewing on it for days until I forget about it.

When I was young, most of my friends were online. I got into coding from an online friend, and immediately took to it. I probably would not be alive today, and I definitely wouldn't be able to have a job, if it weren't for that friend. I only learned what atheism was from the Internet, and what being trans was. I only internalized the "online friends aren't real friends" crap years later and I still struggle with it.

It's so hard to separate myself from the mask. I wonder who I am underneath. Thanks again for listening to me ramble. I think our conversations have helped a lot, I've really enjoyed hearing your perspectives, you are so cool to me.