45
votes
What's something you've moved on from?
What's something you grew out of/moved on from/phased out?
How do you feel about it now? Fondness? Embarassment? A nostalgic ache?
Why did you end up moving on from it?
Was it a conscious decision, or was it something that happened over time?
I won't bother listing the enshittified platforms or services, good riddence and obvious.
Media/Tech:
Livejournal, I remember fondly. A friend died when he was young, and visiting his lj was too sad, and I stopped as well. ICQ eventually gave way to MSN Messenger as a group, but I miss ICQ's profiles as a self erasing microblog platform. So many song lyrics to hint at secret moods.
Story telling trope / in real life: villians
As an edgy teen, I was very enamoured by the baddies who have a secret soft side: Ikari Gendo (Neon Genesis Evangelion), Crake (Oryx and Crake), team Seiryu (Fushigi Yuugi), for example. It wasn't a universal love for villains: Eric Cartman and the Joker I've always disliked. It was a fantasy of becoming the one soft spot of the silent, capable, mastermind type. But I grew older, and realised smart, fun people don't behave that way, and hateful, "morally flexible" people are too selfish to have any meaningful relationships with even if you're what they profess to love, they don't even know the meaning of it.
Being a snarky b
Making hurtful comments isn't a sign of intelligence: finding words of comfort to say when someone needs it is much harder. I was in my late teens, on a week long
vacationfield trip, sitting at a homeless shelter where I'm supposed to be volunteering, making dead babies jokes for shock value and feeling great about myself, when a peer stood up and said, hey, cut it out, [an adult we know] has experienced loss. The adult had been our shelter excursion's liaison and been nothing but kind and wonderful to us all week. I might have in passing wondered why her and her equally wonderful husband had so much time to spend with us teens instead of their own kids. I don't know how I was ever so ignorant that these stupid jokes aren't funny when they connect to real life. I was probably still an awful person for a long time after that, but I'd like to think that was a turning point. I went from "didn't care to be good" to "clumsily trying and failing to be good", a road I am still on today.These are one thing (scary movie scenes are another) I wish I could delete from my brain.
Having been on a similar path "out to the edge" and back myself, I'm starting to believe that teens and twenties are a time where that edginess is natural. It's the finals stage in seeing yourself as independent from your parents / guardians.
You have to go to "the edge" to experience what's there and see why it's the edge (in terms of social acceptability and emotional intelligence / empathy). What constitutes "the edge" also varies based on what you've seen in your life and that opportunities and social circles are available to you.
We also know people who never come back from the edge. It hits different to be a "snarky b" in your forties or fifties and really reads (IMO) as immaturity.
I started a new job working with a lot of younger folk and that edgy behavior is everywhere, exacerbated by the startup culture. It mostly feels cringy and performative to me. But for each cringy interaction, I can recall a moment where I or someone I knew in my younger days did the same thing.
I am working to get past feelings of smugness and condescension to find a norm of interacting with folks that builds connections, but to do so in a way where I am still authentically myself, not leaning back into that edginess to relate to people.
It really is immaturity disguised as being mature and "seen it all" huh. Definitely cringe once we have some perspective. What you wrote in the last paragraph resonated with me. It was probably a way to disguise my inability to actually connect with others, to be genuinely curious about them and to reveal vulnerability via signalling my own desire for on-going friendship. Cutting people down and getting them to go away in shock/disgust seemed easier. It's a more hurtful version of wearing edgy conversation fashion pieces in hopes people will notice and volunteer to do the heavy lifting parts of friendship because of how "cool" the pieces are.
Well, I mean, Yui entombed herself. That's the real tragedy of Gendo's romance.
Don't get me wrong, Gendo did some truly deplorable things that make me like him as little as the next person, but the guy really did get the short end of the stick. Yui loved Gendo and she loved their son. Where this love gets all complicated is that she just plain understood the divine plan for the Eschaton better than Gendo did and she prioritized their child over him.
Yui Ikari and Kyoko Soryu gave themselves willingly to their Evas to become walking arks in protection of their respective children. Kyoko gave her mind while her body remained, and Yui dissolved entirely, as far as we know. But in so doing, they were seemingly able to affect fate and undermine SEELE by choosing the new Adam and Eve themselves. Thus, these two mothers were able to rescue their children from the end of the aeon.
By the time Gendo was wise to what Yui had done, there was little he could really do but tend to Gehirn/NERV and wait for fate to run its course, which it did. Though, he thought he could manipulate Lilith's part in blessing the new Adam and Eve by having her mitama occupy the vessels of Rei and favoring her, but it didn't work out the way he thought it would. The tricky bit is that Gendo didn't realize that this fate was set in stone before any of his own meddling. Lilith was always destined to bless the ones inside the Evas, but Rei, being a partial clone of Yui, was always going to choose Shinji over him.
So in that sense, Gendo's story is rather devastating.
A very similar tragedy plays out in the film Arrival, wherein it asks the following question of a mother: "if you knew how things were going to turn out, would you make those choices?" And ultimately she says yes, which devastates her partner but not before bringing their child to life.
Wow, nicely summarized. And that's also a lot of why Gendo had such a difficult time with Shinji after Yui was gone.
Yui was much more calculating than she appeared, from the start. She was also counting on Fuyutsuki to stick around in support.
Definitely agreed! If I remember right, Fuyutsuki was a doctor aiding people in the aftermath of the Second Impact before going to work at Gehirn. He really stood out to me as sincerely sharing Yui's philosophical value for human life, seeming to have total faith in her gambit with the Evas.
Really? Even the old dudes from SEELE? C'mon! But you caught me, teen Chocobean was also firmly camp Kaworu. Gonna destroy the world but connects with just one human? That was the type.
But yes I suspect this is why I remain a cat person. I can see myself being with a giant, silent, one person type dog, say....an Akita Inu. But I cannot love a friendly one as my dog. I suspect this is the draw behind a million young reader books about the protagonist and their wolf pup.
Oh man I wish we had hot water penguins as well. Hmm maybe not personally want one but I want them to exist.
Misato is a very well written "seems mature" person to a teen. I was a younger teen when I "met" her, and it was quite interesting revisiting this character as I got closer and closer to her father's age. Kinda terrifying if that's how real life military people with lives in their care are like.
Ayanami Rei had always been my favorite; she has a surprising amount of agency that no one expected from any version of her.
I think Kaji worked equally for everyone (and hence no one) in order to find out what the hell was going on. Still pretty tragic he didn't get to grow old with Misato and Ritsuko. Their generation carried such a heavy burden. But it's pretty amazing that in the very next generation, Shinji and co already had it better
It's hard to actually become self-aware and try hard enough to do better and be better. It's a struggle every day when your brain was originally tuned to that first edgy radio setting. I'm proud of you for turning that corner and working on being kinder.
About the hurtful comments: I did the same, see my post in here. I assume a lot of teenagers/young adults do this, so probably we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves ;-)
High five! :) I like this version of us more
I no longer drive like a fool. When I was younger, I drove like an absolute aggro idiot. One time I was passenger in a former friend's car who drove even more aggressively. He tried to pass a traffic column on the wrong side of the road, hit a highway median, and totaled his car. We were wearing seatbelts, and that was the only thing that allowed us to walk away with minor injuries. After that I calmed the down behind the wheel. Since then I've had 10+ years of clean driving records.
I wasn’t horrible, and never aggressive, but I would occasionally speed maybe 20mph over speed limit on a few particular roads in my city that had limited intersections. And the baseline 5mph over the limit just everywhere.
Then my wife became pregnant and I realized I had nowhere to be that was so important that I should risk anyone’s life just to arrive a minute or two earlier.
And I always think, if I hit a kid in my neighborhood, am I going to say “I was only driving 5mph over?”
I used to be really into mechanical keyboards. I built them for years, and even now I have a collection of around 15, with different shapes, layouts, materials, switches, even some vintage ones that I enjoy greatly, but... the moment has passed. I don't know why, the business is as thriving as ever, and good keyboards are getting cheap while cheap keyboards are getting good.
But it turns out, the keyboard I like most? The Apple Magic Keyboard.
I feel the same way. For years I researched having the right case material, type of switch, keycap shape, keycap design, cable, etc. and spent hundreds of dollars on various keyboards. However now, I just use the built in keyboard on my laptop and I'm thinking of getting a Magic Keyboard for my desktop too haha.
If you say that in r/mechanicalkeyboards they'll burn you alive xD
And they should! They're a community of dedicated artisans with tons of creativity and love, and they see a jabroni like me get the lowest common denominator least sophisticated mass produced garbo-board? I'd be mad too.
But @delphi, what about split keyboards?
I got a few! First gen Ergodox, an Alice, and I tried an AM Hatsu at some point. I think they're neat, but i'm not faster on them, at least not measurably, and the only reason I liked them was because I could put a bowl or plate between them. Good conversation starters though.
That's a lot!
I want one (or I think I do), not for speed but for the ergonomics, I'm starting to feel discomfort from angling my wrists when I type correctly.
The ergonomics of them are amazing. I have a ZSA Voyager and you can feel the difference of keeping your arms and wrists relaxed and straight out in front of you instead of angling them and bending them towards your center.
Oh this is me… except I still have a hoard of switches and small parts that I want to use to get back into building again when I can muster the time, energy, and desire…
When it comes to buying complete kits or more “complete” parts (like a standard 60% pcb and case) though? That is definitely behind me. If I put together something now, it’ll be a kit I bought pre-pandemic, or a handwire held together with cardboard.
Liquor.
Video Games
Helping family with tech issues
I am in the same boat, I like the taste of beer and other liquor, and I really don't see the appeal of getting drunk, especially getting blacked out drunk and throwing up what you paid for.
Which styles of beer do you typically go for? Or do you just pick flavors that sounds good when you do buy?
I tend to find that the sours being my favorite styles because I tend to find more "fun" flavors with them because the breweries tend to use either fruit to bring it back to being palatable for people to drink or a younger beer to to that, like Duchesse de Bourgogne (which has a sour cherry taste to it (and this is one of my favorite ones out there)) does with their sour beer.
There is a small brewery near me that does excellent sours, so I will get one of those if nothing else grabs my attention. They have done really weird ones like a blueberry pie sour that included graham crackers to get a pie crust note.
If I go to a brewery known for their stouts, I will get one of those. Another brewery near me did a dark chocolate cherry stout last Valentine's that was fantastic.
Really I will just try the house special wherever, as long as it is interesting. Some winners, some losers, but that really isn't the point.
I also enjoyed discovering and trying out different sours after I started drinking less. I enjoyed a cucumber sour at a local brewer before I moved out of the states. I wish I could get some here, but there are no craft breweries in this country (restricted brewing licenses and home brewing is technically illegal here, I live in a Muslim majority country so they have somewhat strict control on the production of and also highly tax alcohol).
When I went back to the states to visit my friends and family last year and enjoyed trying whatever sours were on tap when I'd go out.
I also gave my family the hard-no on helping them with tech issues. It takes a lot of time and energy to help someone with something that is outside of your realm. Just because I spend a lot of time on computers, do I know what your problem is or how to fix it. I am a lot more mature about it now and they all seem to understand, but early on my thought process was always "I figured it out you can figure it out." - which can be seen as is entirely unfair to some people.
I can understand that there are some skills that you just don’t want to have, and that’s perfectly valid. The skill I don’t have sympathy for people refusing to learn is how to describe the problem they have.
I’m happy to help people out if they can adequately describe the issue, but if “it doesn’t work” is the best description they have, it is a much greater headache.
If your tech problem is creating a big enough hurdle that you can’t continue on with your day until it’s resolved and you’ve had to wait a few hours for help to arrive, what is your excuse for not having any useful details about the problem?
This probably isn’t a good thing, but making plans with my friends.
I used to try very hard to get people to hang out with me but everyone is busy going on vacation or whatever so after a couple years of that, last year I kinda just stopped. I think they all still hang out with each other but I try not to think about that. I don’t think they dislike me or anything I just think I ended up on the outer circle of people they only see when everyone (like 15 of us) gets together. Like a second cousin or something you only see at weddings.
We’re all still friends and I see them maybe a few times a year still but most of the people I talk to on the daily are online, exactly how it was when I was a young teen. Weird how life comes full circle like that.
I'm sorry that you've stopped making plans with friends. I used to have a rather large friend group where I was always the one on the outer circle, and often not actively invited.
I've also had to come to terms with my unpredictable illness that I can't make plans with friends going to other places anymore. Unless my friends come to me, I can't be sure that I won't have to bail at the last minute based on how my body feels. Either way, it's incredibly isolating, and finding good online friends helps a lot, even if you're not hanging out in the same physical space. I've been really lucky to find some good online friends thanks to the whole reddit/squabbles debacles, even if we don't actually know each other's real names. :)
I hope that you are able to see the friends you want to more frequently.
Same, Ive always had a large amount of online friends. Its just a return to how my life was before when I was very young, it feels fine
Drinking alcohol and consuming marijuana. I still drink on occasion, but it generally has to be an occasion. Like I went up to New York recently and visited a friend. I had a couple beers over dinner. Before that, I had a beer at home for NYE. Before that...I had a couple drinks at a work holiday lunch at a restaurant. I'm not just like getting home from work and fixing myself a drink. Or going to a bar by myself just because. It has to be a social call or a holiday.
Idk, I just don't have the urge to drink. And certainly not go HAM like I did in my 20s. Rarely have I drank like that in my 30s; and I'm almost in my 40s now!
Weed is tied to more to my job. I am not allowed at all to consume marijuana. I could lose my job if my employers found out. Which kinda sucks, but really it's a minor annoyance. Because I pretty much stopped consuming marijuana like 2yrs before I even got this job. My usage had tapered off A LOT before I stopped on my own. Like maybe an edible twice a year, if that. It just wasn't as fun as it used to be. On those rare times I did do it, I'd just fall asleep. I don't need to weed to do that. I nap all the time as is!
I feel you. I’m at a point of my life where I just prefer how I feel while sober. I’ll still get a beer while out with friends and I do keep a six pack of beer and THC beverages at home, but they’re rarely touched.
Media consumption as a whole.
I used to be an avid reader, always had music playing with some new hipster album, and kept up with the critical darling indie movies each year. In terms of TV shows I used to just mostly watch way too much anime until Game of Thrones, and then got more into 'normal' American shows with streaming becoming a bigger thing and quality getting better.
Lot of reasons. One is just fatigue. It's one thing to be young and have a "to read/watch/whatever" list to get to eventually. Part of getting old is understanding only so much time to do things, and it's something I don't really care to put that much time into anymore when other things have more long-term benefits. There's also just so much content now that it's hard to keep up with. And GoT burned me so bad I really don't care to follow anything that's currently being released (House of Cards was another one that got me really into TV shows and equally burned me on becoming terrible), and only interested in consuming things that are finished and proven to be good throughout.
Part of it as well is that there was this "importance" to them that isn't there anymore. It mattered to me what the best was, but then you realize 'the best' is more about fads and ones own personal opinion on what's the best really doesn't matter. I thought it mattered with things like relationships - and while shared interest do matter and has led to some nice past friendships, it doesn't need to specifically be shared media interests as there are a lot more important things to value especially romantically. I thought finding my favorite amongst it all meant something/my favorites said something about me, but in the end really it doesn't (especially with how much media isn't consumed). Only one thing really had any kind of actual tangible impact on my life - and it was at least a rather massive impact (the movie Mysterious Skin, which eg helped get me into therapy), but I can't say the same about any thing else media related.
And things have changed. For instance part of why I moved away from anime is I dislike digital animation compared to cel animation (though I very much understand the why), and anime as a whole has shifted away from things like Serial Experiment Lain or Wicked City (at least what has crossed my path). And I don't necessarily mean this negatively - eg I can't say the way music has evolved has interested me, but also hearing the same old thing redone is boring.
Not that I don't consume any media. But eg music now is just going to local shows that look interesting rather than trying to listen to "the best". Movies are mostly whatever my GF is up for watching, as I'd much rather eg watch the Resident Evil film series with her than whatever "the best" movie is alone.
Just hit me "gaming" would also fall under this umbrella of "media consumption." Which I know part of that too is just wanting to be more productive with my time.
It's also interesting getting old and thinking "I'm going to play games and watch anime forever!" when being younger. NOT that there's anything wrong with enjoying those things as someone older, after all time well spent is time spent well. I guess it was just for me that time no longer feeling well spent and would rather do other things in my life.
Status
I used to think very poorly of people without a (college) degree. But as I got older I realized that: (A) it's not because you don't have a degree you can't be intelligent, what is intelligence anyway? (B) That it actually doesn't really matter, everyone has their own unique story. (And C) If you want to get rich, a degree is no hard requirement, and getting rich as a purpose of its own is not what I want anyway.
Personality
I used to make a lot cynical, sarcastic, hurtful remarks/jokes about everything and everyone. Later, I discovered that the true reason for this was me being insecure, and I hid myself behind these remarks to protect my inner fragile self from the outside world. That all changed when I (at a late age) got my first girlfriend.
Climate change
20 years ago, I was a "climate relativist", thinking that humanity probably had little effect on the change of climate and it was just the regular thermal swings our planet has known. Currently, I'm the one convincing my dad and uncles about the need for action, I even founded a tech startup around sustainability lol.
As a few other people have said weed / alcohol and video games Ill leave those out, but I agree with what everyone has said on those. My addition is...
Tech in general
This is the one I thought of when I clicked on this post. And to be clear I'm not moved on - probably never will be - but I can feel the shift. I work in IT, my entire career has been tech based, and I just don't have any sort of passion for it at all anymore. I hate the direction modern IT / tech is taking, how most every product is just a way to suck data out of you to then turn around and show you more ads, not to help solve a problem. I hate how disposable everything is in the world of tech, both hardware and software wise. We (very seldom) actually fix anything now, and as we are seeing a lot of tech has been weaponized against us. I love fixing things and helping people. I've pulled every appliance in my house apart to repair them, I've stopped and changed peoples tires just to help. Precious little in the world of tech is about that anymore.
In my own little ways I've started pulling back. I'm off Windows at home, I ditched my smart watch for an analog one, have started carrying a pen and note pad with me. And I really do enjoy those things. My hobbies have been headed more towards things you do with your hands for years, fixing cars, gardening, home improvements, that sort of thing. I use to have a huge home lab setup, would love learning new things in the world of tech, but now its just a job.
I feel like I need to insert the Grandpa Simpson yelling at clouds picture here.
I feel you on this. In an official/work/career and even sometimes a personal enjoyment capacity (particularly when it comes to looking at tech news and dealing with some devices) I haven't moved on from tech but my approach definitely has shifted.
Whereas I used to feel passionate about the subject in general, my focus has shifted to the specific and the personal. I still enjoy tech when I can tinker with it myself (home server, linux, personal projects, etc)
Just like everything else that has been more and more infected by awfulness, I am deeply curating my experiences now to try and maintain the joy. And as my perspective has shifted I am implementing that in a way that brings enjoyment. Trying to live a life more compatible with repairability, long-term use of computing devices, not buying the shiny new thing, etc. Trying to embody myself what I want tech to become
I will admit switching everything to linux at home did give me the first spark of enjoyment I've gotten out of tech in a while. I'm firmly in the windows world professionally, so it was cool to tinker again, try some new things out. And just getting away from Windows 11 which had been the bane of my existence at work. Even then though, I'm on the user end of things at home. I can play the odd game, get to a web browser and stream media, that's about all I need.
I relate to you on people sharing about the other points of being over weed/alcohol. I feel like I could share "my story" but it is similar to a lot of other people and I think they said it better than I did.
After I graduated I went to work in a smaller IT team and I loved learning new things for work. I had a smaller home lab, I started studying for certs during downtime at work and outside of work as well. I could have worked harder on that, but still wanted to enjoy some of my other hobbies that I held on to outside of what felt like a continuation of my job. After having kids, I'm finding I'm having such a hard time getting myself motivated to learn new technologies and upskill myself. I know I want to do those things so I can get in a better position to provide for my family, but after working with tech for 8 hours a day I'd rather read a book (for fun/unrelated to tech), play with my kids, or get some of the stream of never ending house work done.
I've been thinking about starting a thread here to ask how other people who have families/familial obligations keep interested and up to date with all the trends in tech related to their job. I used to wonder why my dad, who also worked in IT, didn't want to play games or do more tech stuff after work (besides the bit of computer repair he did for friends/family as a side thing). Now I get it.
I think the thing that actively drives me away from tech the most these days is the realization that most companies just want to sell me the same shit I already own, but with whatever tech fad is currently in place. For instance, a while ago the thing was selling kitchen appliances with Bluetooth radios to make them “smart” - usually by combining them with a smartphone app that has some sort of subscription. This year they are doing the same thing but it includes some sort of AI component.
This wouldn’t be quite as bad if this were the 80s and they actually had to put a lot of effort into engineering these solutions, but today’s technologies have become trivial to implement. We are living in the post-arduino world, where even I could implement most of the things that these devices are doing. Combine this with so-called “tech journalism” which is filled to the brim with sycophants who will love everything they come across. If it’s a fantasy product that will never hit the consumer market, the journalists will believe that it will, and if it’s a demonstration shows that it’s terrible, well, that just means that it “has potential” and they’ll have a working one “soon”.
Don’t even get me started on companies who are trying to rebrand themselves as “tech companies” as a transparent money grab.
Many things in this thread that remind me of stuff in my life:
Weed is a big one for me. I didn't really get into it until probably my mid-20's and then smoked heavily until about 34. It was a concerted effort to actually quit, but now that I've been sober from it for about 8 years, I couldn't care less about it.
As @EsteeBestee says, Tabletop RPGs. I played them a lot in my early 20's to my early 30's and I still have an active group, but I don't care about going and playing, really. I go to hang out with people and get myself out of the house, but I could not care less if we played the game or not and in fact, would probably prefer if we didn't, because it would mean less "Homework" for me.
A few friendships. I was very close with an older friend in my 20's, he being in his 40s. After I changed relationships and he had his own mental break, as well as had a spouse that commited a major crime, we sort-of lost touch. Each of us kind of tried to reconnect, but never really did and since then I think both of us have moved on.
Warhammer. Weird time to get into it, but I started getting heavily invested in it around mid-2020. A few years later, I went to several tournaments and have 4 different armies for it, two of which are fully painted. But I've lost interest in the game and painting so much. I ended-up finding other games that are more fun to me, as well as have a significantly lower model count, which means less painting and more playing.
Similarly, painting miniatures in general. At this point in the 6ish years I've been at it, I've painted hundreds of minitures and I still am painting some for my favorite game, but I'm kind of over it. I still enjoy going to tournaments for this other game, but outside of having one coming up (every six months), I have pretty much zero motivation to paint. Something I once did for pleasure, I'd mostly rather not do at this time and when this tournament coming up in February is done, I'll probably put down my paint brush until the next one.
Modding Gameboy's. Around 2018 or 2019, I got really in to buying Gameboys, fixing them up and modifying them. It was fun to learn the basic soldering skills to do that, as well as repair old systems and then sell them on. But it really only lasted a year or two before I got pretty bored with it as a whole and stopped. I still have several of them in my drawers that have been fixed or are ready to be modded, but they just sit there gathering dust. I ought to sell them, but I feel not quite ready to do that yet, if that makes sense.
I guess right now it would be tabletop RPGs. I’m still playing tabletop games in general and I’m still playing video game RPGs, but I had been playing tabletop RPGs at least once a week for the last 13ish years and need a break.
I don’t suspect I’ve permanently moved on, but I definitely want a few years off and, if I go back, to play with some new groups. My previous groups just naturally fizzled over time as people entered different stages of their lives and that’s okay! I also had a sour moment that stuck with me for a while, so time off will be good.
I was running a game in a more lethal setting than we’re used to. I ran a few sessions to gauge things and then asked players for feedback before I built my world and a campaign. They all said they loved it, so I then spent weeks building a campaign and world from scratch! Well, after the next session, they then said they hated that system, which I had just spent like 40 hours building a world in, and spent money on books, too. It just left me sour and told me it’s time to take a few years off and come back completely fresh after exploring some other hobbies.
So time will tell if I go back. I still enjoy writing and acting and I do get to do both of those things in the right RPG group, but I want to explore war gaming for a bit, I missed it!
Eating meat regularly. Ever since my ER visit last year, I've basically cut out meat from my life. I will occasionally eat chicken or pork (beef makes me so sick, so I avoid it now, which is sad because I love burgers), but it's really only when we're eating out with others and there are no viable vegetarian options with protein.
I've been functionally a vegetarian for 7 months now, and it's helped me lose weight and decrease some of my inflammation thanks to my chronic illnesses. We ate about 75% vegetarian at home before my incident anyway, but I am now experimenting with not-meat proteins that aren't just impossible or beans. Now we eat tofu and vital wheat gluten, and have tried tempeh, but aren't fans. Impossible meat and especially beans are high in the rotation, but it's nice to have other options I'm not afraid of anymore.
I'm also really lucky to have a partner who is willing to give up meat at home for me too. He was already doing Meatless Mondays because Paul McCartney is a proponent of it, and he's a huge fan, but now he's happy being vegetarian at home. I'm also lucky to have a BFF who is vegetarian, bordering on vegan, so she can introduce me to so many things without me having to spend a ton of money on something that I'm not sure I'll like.
I do miss meat a bit - like I said, especially burgers, but honestly, I probably should have done this years ago for my own health.
I had to give up dairy years ago for health reasons and eventually you don’t miss it, everything dairy just tastes like poison to me now.
I'm sorry you had to give up dairy. I can understand how something that makes you sick can taste like poison.
I had to come to terms with my lactose intolerance at the same time as my new meat intolerance, so I now take a lactaid whenever I have dairy, or I settle for the lactose free versions of things. I can't just let it go, since I haven't found a good alternative yet.
It was annoying at first but now I hardly think about it. It helps that I really enjoy almond milk. I didn’t really find replacements for most things, like butter, I just stopped eating things like ice cream, certain types of cheese, etc. Its been years and I don’t miss it.
With meat, a lot of my vegetarian friends don’t attempt to replace it, they eat meals that aren’t supposed to have meat. Things like lentil dishes or paneer tikka marsala.
There are a lot of really good vegan cheeses out there now, if you're ever in the market! I love Miyokos everything including their butter.
As for meat substitutes, I like to have a lot of novelty, so having those as options is always welcome to me. We do eat a lot of beans for protein, though. I would say at least 3 meals a week are some sort of bean dish, like last night I made a "cassoulet-ish" thing with beans and mushrooms and then added quinoa to it for extra bulk. I've gotten to experience fresh beans from the farmer's market, very freshly dried beans, all sorts of new to me beans that I never knew existed beyond black, pinto, kidney, and garbanzo! But I love impossible nuggets. They're the best nugget on the frozen market, hands down - chicken or vegan. Those are also in our weekly rotation as an "I'm too tired to cook, let's throw nuggies and broccoli in the oven for 15 min" type dinner.
I really cant eat a lot of the subs cause I’m allergic to soy, but I’m glad that works for you!
I eat a lot of beans too, and a TON of lentils
I used to be someone who ate a big portion of meat at every meal. But somehow I don’t miss it today, and I haven’t for quite a while.
My husband, unfortunately, did not go veg with me, and he regularly eats meat. I haven’t told him this, but I find it really unattractive when he eats meat-heavy meals. Last night he had fried chicken and watching him with those bones going in and out of his mouth with the cartilage and muscle fibers sticking out was just plain gross. I still love him more than anything though.
I've got a few myself:
2: Video games. Even though I post in that weekly game thread from time to time, I don't enjoy playing games much anymore. I've been this way for many years though. Video games were a big part of my childhood and now I barely finish them. I'll play through anywhere between 5 and 20 hours of a game over the course of months and then just sorta drop it.
3: Certain friendships. There were certain friendships I had that I realized, post-COVID, only continued to exist because I put in effort and the other party didn't. I eventually realized that these friendships were always lopsided and rarely had effort from the other party. I always had to change plans to accommodate them but they'd never think to change their own plans to accommodate me.
-- Alcohol
At times, given <gestures at world> I'm tempted to go back. I gave it up completely a couple of years ago. I drank heavy about once a week about 15 years ago, and in recent years, maybe 4-8 a month total, and eventually, it just got to the point where I'm old enough that even a single drink I can feel affecting me (headache/migraine trigger, sometimes immediately, not just hangovers), and the little bit of relaxation I can get from a buzz is not worth the costs I pay every time (money, feeling bad, etc). Also, importantly, I got to the point where both online and in-person, I do not like witnessing people being under the influence, even if they're not doing anything bad.
Something just about seeing/reading someone being under the influence gives me a mega negative vibe now. While not addicted, I also don't like the feeling of wanting to grab a drink or two to "take the edge off" of my emotions or whatever. I had my fun. It's not worth it anymore. I'm glad I gave it up and have not had a single sip in a couple of years or more. Just feels freeing to be over it.
-- Christianity/religion
...and all the things that go with it (church, almost all the friends/people from that era of my life, the politics that flavor of faith informed, etc). I've talked about this multiple times before so I won't go into it too deep, but the first half of my life was spent in this bubble and it's probably been 10-15 years now since I went through that years-long journey, and to this day I remain feeling more free and happy in that aspect of my life than I ever was during that first half of life. To this day, I feel liberated. It was a product of me deciding to take my faith even more seriously and addressing my own doubts and questions in a bid to strengthen it, only to realize I really no longer truly believed anymore. It was its own very long process that went through many steps and phases from more strict forms of Christianity (Southern Baptist) to more non-denominational/inclusive forms, to a non-organized theism, etc. Dabbled with other things a while (Buddhism). Ultimately led to atheism and I'm glad.
Because my identity and life was so wrapped up into it for so long, I don't think I'll ever fully be "over it" (in that it's not something I'll stop talking about or watching content about or whatever), but as time has gone on I've refined my perspective slightly and have at least somewhat emotionally recovered, but I wouldn't say I'm trauma-free. But, having had this experience, and now having a friend that at some point did the same, we have this very unique thing in common we can talk about at a deep level, so it's nice it happened that way.
(And I don't mean this harshly, but just as a note, though I'd expect this to be less likely on Tildes- if anyone is a Christian and feels compelled to respond to this in some way, please just don't- I don't want pity or prayers or apologetics or whatever, I've heard it all a thousand times)
-- Movies/TV Shows/Fiction in General
This one is not recent by any means, but I consumed a decent amount of it as a kid/teen/college-aged person and after that I left it all behind. Youtube/Twitch/Standup Comedy/Non-fiction stuff/podcasts are the main thing I watch now. I just lost my interest in most fictional stories of any kind, including books. Video games are an exception, but most of my gaming is not narrative/story-deep in nature, with a few exceptions (especially nostalgic ones) but I do watch others play. I just get way more fulfillment and enjoyment out of non-fictional stuff of all kinds. I would rather watch a documentary than any fiction. I would rather read a book about coffee, tea, or computers than a fictional story. I would rather watch someone repair an HVAC system on Youtube than a movie or TV show. All of these might have the rare exception, but in general this is all true.
I read this and had a visceral ugh of sympathy. Having been on a similar journey "out of the bubble", I think this is my biggest challenge socializing in groups with that circle (my wife is still active in the church). Most people are fine 1-1 or in small groups, but I get that "we think you are broken and need fixing" vibe more as the group size grows.
Josh Ritter is an interesting singer whose later work resonates with my journey that you might enjoy. For a funnier take, I recommend Getting Ready to Get Down. He just released Theophany, which is amazing / the best SF short story I've heard in a while.
Yeah for me, once the church connection was gone, there was no way I could or would socialize with most of those groups or people anymore. In fact, it made me realize (with exceptions) most of the connections I had made had no real foundation that could preserve them post-religion. Without even any effort to do so, nearly all of those connections instantly severed, and that's something difficult to handle but ultimately that's the way I wanted it and knew it had to be anyway
Wishing you well in your navigating the experience- Being in a position where your spouse is still in the church and you still have to socialize with people from that circle must be an extremely tough thing to navigate- I couldn't even imagine going through that- it would be nigh impossible for me to handle emotionally. It can feel so incredibly isolating (not to mention all the gaslighting / "we can fix you" / the judging stares / the misrepresentations of what we've gone through / etc). Which is why I was so glad to find others online (and podcasts and forums and whatnot) while going through my process.
Thanks for the music rec, will check it out. David Bazan / Pedro the Lion's questioning and criticism from within and eventual journey out of evangelicalism (and entire albums about it, like Curse Your Branches) matched mine pretty well so he's been one of my favorite musicians of all time
The good thing about the church my wife attends and I used to attend is that it is not the church that represents so much of the systematic and personal harm that I've been trying to separate from. It's more mainline (Presbyterian, though EPC so kind of middle-of-the-road in terms of being progressive), so while not perfect, it is a far cry from the "religious right" evangelical church I grew up in.
For me, there's no attraction in organized religious practice or the community that's centered in it. The central tenet of my practice, such as it is, has become kenosis or "gentle space making for other wills" (I wrote more about it here).
I'll check out David Bazan, sounds like an interesting listen. Thanks!
Oh, that's great then- when one is at least out of the right-wing and/or conservative in either meaning (politically or religious strictness) evangelical sphere it makes an enormous difference so I'm sure a lot of those social situations are at least somewhat more at ease then.
Also- I did, but didn't intend to, assume exactly where you landed belief/practice-wise post evangelicalism (and that assumption may have been present in my correspondence) and I totally get people will land differently and that's always subject to change too. It's easy, given my experience, to lump anyone else's journey in with my own even if we fall in different places ultimately- I view it through my lens so much, even though that's something I've tried to continually work on. I'm sure this is obvious and likely unnecessary to say, but I wanted to be clear about that. (For instance, in relation to your earlier post you linked to, I would not similarly describe myself in any terms that reference Jesus or following him or his way, though I appreciate Backhouse, philosophers, and others that are trying to wrestle Jesus back in some sense from right-wing Christian nationalism and the like)
There are so many Bazan tracks I could point to so it's hard to nail it down, but even just the first song "Hard To Be" off of Curse Your Branches is a solid one: https://davidbazan.bandcamp.com/album/curse-your-branches
Going fully into atheism or agnosticism is by far the most common outcome, so I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption :) I had it easier than most. I am a straight, white, cis man – evangelicalism was made for me – and most of my trauma is around undoing those patterns and biases in myself, rather than being harmed by them as so many have been.
At the core, Jesus' teaching (like, just the red letters) are not a bad way to approach one's fellow humans. They give me a way to connect with my wife and a common framing for talking with my daughter. But I think if things had unfolded a little differently, I could see myself just as easily settle into agnosticism.
That's why "Theophany", the song by Josh Ritter, resonates so strongly with me. Suppose there was a "god" (in the sense of some being different and more powerful than us) and that being interacted with people in the distant past. After thousands of years of shaping the history of that interaction to support a narrative, reinforce power structures, and control the way people think, would that original interaction even be recognizable?
I think that's why biblical inerrancy is such a big deal to evangelicals. Growing up, nothing would get you in trouble faster than questioning the Bible. Looking at it now, I see that it provides a convenient justification for enforcing certain norms as well as excusing a lot of morally questionable behavior. But if I take that away as a foundation, and start questioning everything, there's not much left. And then I started asking myself whether trying to untangle some semblance of truth from it all was really worth it. If I were to stay in the community, I don't think my ideas would really be welcome, and I don't think wrestling with people theologically is either my calling or a fun-sounding hobby.
fellow ex-vangelical here, and what you say about your journey away from Christianity is extremely relatable. Mine was very similar. I don't think the ways that upbringing affects us can ever 100% go away, but we can learn more about ourselves and how those formative experiences affected us to help us navigate the world and ourselves better going forward. I think I'd have a tendency towards black-and-white thinking regardless, but growing up in that environment definitely hammered that home into me. Getting over the intense internal policing is something I'm still working on.
Yeah, I have slowly come to be grateful for all of it in some twisted way because it helped me eventually break free of it. Maybe without my exact experience I would have never made it out. The only thing is still a bit of resentment I hold towards it for essentially feeling like over half of my life was wasted on something. Lots of time and energy and mental stress and whatever all pumped into this unnecessary extra layer placed on life that is tied into everything you know and it all falls apart the moment you walk away
It's interesting that even being 10+ years out of the main deconstruction process that it took a long time to mostly overcome the fear of hell. The indoctrination and time in the bubble gets embedded so wildly deep in one's psychology that it's tough to root all of the poison out. Like hearing hymns or music I listened to back then can be triggering in a way, or hearing someone talking in the language of Christianity, etc. It improves constantly with time but all of it feels so alien to me now- and looking back I know how deep in the bubble I was but it's hard for me to grasp that that used to be me. I always say it's kinda like "born again" but in reverse or something- I truly feel like I have lived two different lives and I don't even recognize the old me anymore.
Yeah this really echoes my experience. I don't feel quite as much like I wasted half my life, though. You can't waste an opportunity you never had. That was the circumstance you were born into, and you did what you could with the hand you'd been dealt. Sometimes your hand is kinda shit. But especially now that you're in a place where you can think critically about your upbringing, I think it's possible to wring out what good you can from it and then move forward to make the best of your new life. And I honestly agree, it does feel like I'm a different person from the kid who was crying worried about "falling away" for being a "nominal Christian". There's a lot of starting over involved.
I try to focus positively on my new opportunities and experiences going forward as opposed to dwelling on missed opportunities in my past. Bc even before I got to the stuff out of my control, like being raised super evangelical, I'd have way too many mistakes and missed opportunities to dwell on, and getting into that quagmire isn't gonna bring any of of those opportunities back. Easier said than done though, ofc.
knowing nod your way, having also left Evangelical/Baptist/Non-denom Protestantism
Watching people do what they're good at doing for fixing stuff is mesmerizing.
Interestingly, I've gone the opposite way. I was obsessed with documentaries, encyclopedias, etc., as a kid, and I adamantly hated games with too much story (I basically only played games like SimAnt). The older I get, however, the more I find myself moving away from nonfiction and toward fiction and storytelling — although I think it's less an age-related thing and more a reflection of how the nonfiction media landscape around me is changing.
I do still somewhat obsessively watch/read about things like geology, so long as the subject is presented in a pretty dry manner (like "Here's how to identify different types of soil" or "Here's how this particular mountain range formed"), but I feel like it's become pretty difficult to find nonfiction media that isn't trying to be extremely entertaining (e.g., "The biggest volcanic eruptions in history!"), that isn't biased toward the creator's opinions, or that doesn't contain sloppy inaccuracies. I really don't like the idea of consuming misleading media, and since I'm not in a good position to fact-check most of the media I consume, I find myself reluctant to give nonfiction a chance unless it's been heavily vetted by experts in its field.
So I'm a lot more into fictional media now. I wouldn't say I consume a lot of it (I watch a movie or TV show maybe once a month, for example), but fiction makes up probably 90+% of the media I consume these days. I feel like the quality of fictional media has increased a great deal since I was younger (or maybe I just have better access to quality media now?). I often hated it as a kid because it felt like the creator was trying to forcefeed me some kind of lesson or message. But today, there's plenty of fiction that explores interesting philosophical questions, science fiction concepts, etc., in a much more open way, and I love it.
From when I was a child to when I was about 13 years old I was obsessed with video games. It was my main hobby, it’s what I wanted to do when I grew up (every little boy during that time period wanted to lake video games). But the thing was that I didn’t have access to a lot of games. My parents kind of refused to buy me any substantial amount of games, and they were too pricey for me to buy on whatever infrequent allowance I was given.
I discovered torrenting around that age and, while torrenting video games at the time was very difficult and I didn’t have the proper hardware, torrenting movies was quite easy. So that’s when I started getting really into movies, because it was something I could do for free. What I would watch on YouTube also transitioned away from video game stuff to movie stuff. And that’s where my film obsession came from.
This is a work in progress, but explaining myself too much. People can be highly neurotic and simply refuse to interpret words literally.
If someone is profoundly and confidently wrong about me, there is little chance that they will have the ability and willingness to interpret further explanations correctly. Engaging in multiple turns of social validation is incredibly tiresome. So I'll just point out that a misunderstanding has occurred, and then I disengage.
Some people are not really interested in conversation. They have lots of things to say that have nothing to do with me.
And yes, according to my doctor a few weeks ago, I'm actually totally autistic. Just saying this because a lot of times when I talk about that stuff, someone asks me if I am autistic. So yeah, it turns out I am, actually.
Being able to be over over explaining and simply disengaging seems less tiring.
And oh! Congratulations on the diagnosis.
Not so much me but my toddler. I see him growing out of things slowly, and I kind of feel sad but happy he has grown up, but aww that toy was so cute and how he loved it was cuter still!
It’s interesting how he will find something he used to love after its been put away and then want to revisit it and that age of his life, feels so relatable.
For me I have had to give up a lot of things since having him, and I don’t miss them, and don’t have the energy to go back to them so much, but I still want to return to them when I have more energy!
Dwarf Fortress. I haven't touched it since my oldest was one year old. And I miss it still, but I think it's better this way. I still have the memories -- not nostalgia, something else, the sentiment of losing myself in that world. The memory evokes the feeling, but without the need to waste so much copious time on the actual experience.
I still play video games, both too much and not enough (it never is, of course). But I'll let go of these when the time comes too.
I felt exactly the same way during early multiplayer minecraft; I would go to the "good" computer lab in the sciences building in college & abuse their nice video cards to play a poorly-optimized game with nonfunctional physics and goofy useless features & enemies, and it was wonderful. I built a house in a cave by the ocean and I still think about it sometimes.
'3' come join the server~~~~
One day, we'll go back and strike the earth.
The New York Times crossword lol. I did it every day for... 8+ years (i'm wicked smaht i know); if you use the app & have it "check" your answers, you get a blue star, & if you do it without any help you get a gold star. Before I started ADHD meds in 2024, I might get a gold on a Tuesday, or a Sunday (they start out easiest on Monday, hardest on Saturday, Sunday is mid- but larger & usually has some fun tricky stuff)—the month I started I got a gold star every day, and then every month after that lol, except for a blue streak where I was going through & thinking "man do I really even enjoy these things I've been doing?" And I did, so I picked it back up until a few weeks ago after I was talking to a friend about crosswords & they said "Huh, so it's kind of, like, you probably just remember the clues after a while, right? Like they're not all new, it's the same words." And ya know I had never thought about that, but of course they were right—it's similar obviously but I had the same experience with Scrabble: it was my fav. board game until I played someone who was extremely serious about scrabble lol, and after getting a peek behind the curtain where you just memorize a set of 2-3-letter words like RO, SA, etc you just spam those & blast everyone.
I don't have any issue with algorithmic entertainment; it feels great to sail through a rubik's cube, even though "the steps are always the same;" I think that I just kinda maxed out & didn't realize it. I got pretty quick at the NYT, especially if I did it on desktop, & when I saw people livestreaming crosswords or wordle or something I would think "huh, I could do that," but I don't wanna lol.
This reminded me of my short stint at doing the mini-crossword with my friends daily for like a year. We'd post about it daily in our group chat and try to race each other to see who could do it the fastest. After a while, we'd started noticing patterns in how they'd formulate the hints and it quickly stopped being as interesting. We'd instead start cheating, solving it first on one device and then doing it again on another device to get the fastest time to make it look like we did it super fast.
Yeah, one of my buds started doing the mini last year also, he wanted to add me & then I think maybe he regretted that because he stopped doing them lol. What was your best time? I never got as far as multiple devices or practice runs but I think my PR was like nine seconds for a daily one.
Some things, like smash bros say, I can appreciate the meta even if I'm def. not that good, and I really love meeting someone who has actually transcended that mark & they're just incredible at something—maybe it's the single-player nature of the pursuit with crosswords that makes the "meta" a turnoff for me. I even started reading all the descriptions and Will Shortz articles, but that made it worse because they described the crossword creation process where they come up with the clever ones & then a program autocompletes the rest.
I think my PR was roughly around 10 seconds as well. Another reason your buddy stopped doing them could also be because the NYT Mini stopped being free in late August. They probably saw more traffic going to the Mini than other parts of their site so they put it behind their pay wall.
One of the things I enjoyed about the mini and crosswords in general was the single-player aspect of them funnily enough.
I think I'm finally done with Reddit. For a while I had a policy of just never going on the defense or engaging in controversial topics--I write comments that are either technical help, relationship advice, or jokes. But recently I shared a very personal account of my polyamorous relationships and some technical advice and just received so much hatred and skepticism. It's occurring to me that, in general, I've outgrown Reddit. I get very little out of it and spend so much time on it. I fully know how manipulated it is and how many bots there are. It's just so unhealthy. Even the niche hobby subs are full of mostly very inexperienced people. This is fine. I like to help. But I need more.
I find that I'm constantly scrolling for connection, looking for topics to engage in, and just not finding anything. It's the same here too, but I feel like sharing personal things is a lot safer here. Like people will disagree or not share my view, but will simply engage in a way that's more interesting than negative. I may also focus on my real life connections more. I have a lot of social opportunities I haven't engaged with. There's always this "I have so much to do, I can't go out tonight!" voice in my head. Then I spend all night on Reddit and go to bed depressed at some horrible hour. I might as well have actual fun if I am going to skip folding laundry.
I still go on Reddit some, mainly niche subreddits or /r/fantasy for more book recommendations since I clearly do not have enough books on my 1k+ to read list, but I definitely have noticed I feel better mentally when I stay off of it.
I thought I'd share what helped me years ago when I had my first "huh I should really not spend so much time on Reddit" realizations. I took replaced the location of my Reddit is Fun icon on my phone with my ereading app once I started picking up reading again. Then when opened my phone I would muscle memory open up my ereader app instead of Reddit and I started making a lot of progress in books I kept saying I wanted to read but "didn't have time to read" since I would read a few pages here and there instead of looking at a random thread that ultimately I didn't get much out of.
That's a great idea. Thanks!
Two related things: algorithmic social media and doomerism. You do genuinely feel better once your doom scrolling is under control, firstly because it re-habituates you to acting intentionally, which is inherently empowering. And secondly because you're no longer bombarded by political takes from people who are trying to justify their own (app-addiction-induced) lack of action.
Speedcubing.
Roughly 15-18 years ago I was semi addicted to Rubik's cubes. Yes, Pursuit of Happyness influenced me.
I loved it and loved learning about it. I would go to as many forums as I can to learn about the various methods to solve it, always trying to get faster and faster times. I eventually was consistently getting close to sub-25 for a 3x3, which I thought was pretty good lol (it was trash for competitive standards, even back then)
One day while I was solving my Rubik's cube in the living room, my dad got up and took it from my hand and smashed it on the floor, along with any other Rubik's puzzles I had. Said the constant noise was annoying.
Never really got into them again. Years later, I bought one with my own student loan money, but the 'spark' within me was gone. Never really cared too much about them since.
I'm sorry your dad did that. It must have been very hurtful to you.
Sweets.
Not saying I don't eat anything sweet anymore, but all those super sweet candies, like Haribo and stuff, as well as bars of chocolate, I've stopped eating because they're too sweet for me now. I used to have a lot of that and believed that I could never get enough of them, but eventually you start realizing that you get tired of all the supersweet and you start enjoying the finer nuances of proper food.
Music, I guess. I want to get back into it, but I'm terrible at carving out the time to do it. Between college classes and my research work, I don't have a ton of leisure time, and I need social interaction, so I tend to hang out with my friends a lot—I've likely atrophied quite a bit.
I used to be a drummer, but I lost my passion for it around senior year of high school. I got into synthesizers, and my ADHD meds made it much harder for me to drum; I moved away from hardware synthesizers into software. The passion's still there, I like making music, but it's hard to do.
Atheism
I consider myself an agnostic nowadays. Years ago as an ex-evangelical, I became as dogmatically certain of atheism and the obvious irrationality of all religion as I was of my previous faith. Reflecting on which considerations count in favor of rational belief has made me think personal experiences may rationalize belief, as well as other considerations (e.g., cosmological fine-tuning, psychophysical harmony, nomological harmony, etc.) Also, not all "theists" are young earth creationist, conservative, evangelical protestants.
I've come to realize a lot of what new atheists including myself have said about conversational norms like the burden of proof, the nature of disbelief vs suspension of belief, and starting points for justification to be deeply confused and often incoherent.
New atheism has made good friends with the far right, and there is a through-line from new atheism to so-called groypers as I alluded to in a post I made a few years back.
Leftist politics
I intend to write a full post on this, but for many reasons I've come to think the most progressive projects will also be liberal. I appreciate the lessons I've learned reading leftist theory for nearly a decade, while also coming to understand its limitations. One lesson we can all learn from leftists is to know where to focus our attention. Focus on what materially affects people like healthcare, and less on performing art centers or ballrooms.
I sometimes used leftist doomerism as a balm to soothe my worries, a tool to justify a lack of concern about the degradation of liberal institutions or the decline of democracy in the Trump era ("there's nothing worth saving here anyway", "this will speed up the fall so we can get to the political project that actually matters", etc.) Some commenters on a leftist doomer post I think must've played some non-trivial role in planting the seed to change my mind. I can tell in retrospect my view was already shifting, but I still strongly agree to this day with many aspects of that post, such as focusing on being engaged at the local level.
I used to think that to not jump to the most outlandish political solutions betrayed a lack of concern (or at least a lesser degree of concern) about the issues, where now I think I care as much or more than I did as a leftist.
Meat eating
Factory farming is among the worst atrocities humanity has committed. This is also deserving of its own post, so I'll save it for that, but I noticed that when I went vegan (and I no longer felt a need to justify my own behavior to myself) I had the clarity to finally reflect on what I thought about this issue without bias. It's grim.
What isn't so grim is that it's never been easier to go vegan. It took not much more than two or three weeks to adjust, mainly trying my hand at different recipes, meal prep options, meal delivery plans, and snacks. Lots of great recommendations from the fine folks here on this post.
I've moved on from having friends. I was always really bad at maintaining the relationship, I'm not one to text or call someone to make plans, so things just never really happened for me.
It sounds kind of harsh, but I never liked the effort of maintaining the friendship. But I always have fun when hanging out with people I like. But, to a lot of people, that seems cold and distant. I'm very much an out of sight, out of mind type of person, unless there is something specific that pulls me back into it.
I've lost a couple of close friendships because of it, before I was more aware of the way I can come across, and have just given up on maintaining friendships like that. I pretty much stick to my family now or spend time alone.