Staving off boredom

I'm listening to Alison Goldfrapp's new album Head First right now. I don't like it quite as well as Seventh Tree, but it's really good none the less. It's "chippier" and more synthpop than her last one which had stronger downtempo and acoustic sounds. Here's the first song on the album.

But I didn't come here to talk about that. I came to talk about the profound sense of boredom and lack of motivation I've been experiencing for the last several months - if not the last couple of years. I have such are had time now being interested in anything. It's really frustrating. It all feels so meaningless to me, and I wish it didn't. I'm not sure why do I do anything. I'm not sure who it's even for - it isn't for me. I also get painfully bored in social situations. I remember thinking years and years ago that I was tired of "going out" and couldn't wait for the quieter calmer aspects of life to set in. But it's never happened. I'm still out to the club or the bar and it's as dull as it ever was. Don't get me wrong, I have had a great many just brilliant "going out" experiences. When going out is fun it's really fun . . . it's just that it's rarely fun. It's usually just noise, trite half-heard superficial conversations, and a huge waste of money. Tired of not having anyone interesting to talk to I usually end up finding myself a dark end of a sofa and wait until whatever group I'm with stumbles past and I can coax them into leaving. This was the way it was last night, and basically every other one of these "socials" I've been to in the last couple of years.

Now I don't want you to get me wrong. For sure I'm hating, but I don't want to be asocial. I just want to do something that doesn't involve noise, drugs and alcohol for a change. I can think of loads of things to do: watch movies, play games, late-night arcades, bowling, group art projects, or day-time things like parks and hiking or adventuring or whatever. The problem is that I don't really fit the demographic of people who do this sort of thing.

One problem I have is that while politically/socially I'm very progressive or liberal when it comes to my personal life I tend to be fairly conservative. I frankly don't care if you want to get matching angry Atheist tattoos of a burning American flag with your same-sex husband/wife or heterosexual life partner while taking bong hits with a prostitute you thought it would be fun to have a three-way with. That person is probably pretty fun to be friends with . . . but it isn't how I want to live my life. "Experimenting" never has seemed appealing to me - it's not the way I seek adventure. Unfortunately, culturally in White America people who are like me in their personal lives are usually backwards social regressives and religious fundamentalists. It's frustrating. It's almost like there is overwhelming cultural pressure to actually behave at the level of openness you are OK with others doing on a larger scale. So while I think I'd have more fun engaging in the less drug-induced fun of those with self-restraint and modesty I can't because the things they actually believe are so contemptuously arcane and uncomfortably too often hateful as well. But let me be clear as to not offend, specifically I'm talking about White American Christians.

But I also don't want to give the impression that having drinks and going out is never fine either. No, quite oppositely I think it's healthy to go out. That's why even though I usually don't enjoy myself I always go whenever my friends want to go - it's social, there a chance I'll have a good time and likely someone I'm friends with will have a good time. I'd just would like mix in others things too.

Actually, you know what I really want to do is go to the pet store and play with the puppies. Seriously, I'm not just saying that to sound sensitive. I've been trying to get someone to do that with me since I got here. It would be so much fun. They've got so much energy.