I grew up in a relatively small boring town in Northern California. I was the poor kid in a group of middle class and upper middle class dorks. I knew no one would pay for me to go to college so I chose to go to community college. All my friends got free rides to great UC colleges from their parents. I got left. I finished my associates and got accepted to UC Davis. None of my family would co-sign on a student loan, mostly because no one thought I could do it... So I joined the Military.
I got away from California and traveled the world. I learned a trade and got my bachelors online and for free. I missed my friend back in California and I thought all the time about how fun it was to hang out with them. In my memories they were great bros that were always around, so they must have cared.
I moved back to California after 10 years in the military, mostly to not be separated from my newly born daughter and to look after my sick grandma. I bought a house and went on the GI bill (military funded education) until I could find a job.
To my surprise most of my friends wouldn't return my calls. No one really wanted to see me after I got back. The only time I ever saw old friends was when I had house parties and invited a ton of people. Some of my friends were super successful in tech, some turned into NEETs (jobless and no ambition). I tried really hard to reach out to people, but I came to a realization. No one every really liked me. I was basically just the weird kid people kept around for fun. People got married and I wasn't invited. People had parties and I wasn't even thought of. I stopped having partied and started looking for work.
I spent about a year looking for a job in the Bay area. I applied for 100 jobs before I gave up (no exaggeration). I had multiple degrees and 10 years experience in the military, but couldn't find anything that wasn't entry level or a scam. I didn't want to go back to working for the military but it started getting grim when I approached 100 applications.
Thankfully I was pretty self sufficient due to crypto and my online sales business, but day jobwise I was dead in the water. I would get job interviews and I'm pretty sure they saw I was a white guy and instantly told to wait for a call back. Then I'd call and call until I found out someone else got the job. 100% of the time I went in to check on the position it was filled by someone that was non-white and almost every time a woman. I don't want to sound like a walking misogynist great replacement conspiracy theorist 4chan troll, but this is real and happened to me in the Bay area.
I eventually gave up and went back as a contractor for the military. Not wanting to move, but I had no choice. My second daughter was now on the way (my Y chromosomes were probably blasted away from nuclear radiation exposure in the military and I can probably only have girls lol). I put in applications on USAJOBs.com and immediately got job offers all over the country. Much more pay than even the Bay area! There was a bidding war and I negotiated really high pay! I took a job in LA, thinking it was close enough I could check on my grandma once a year or something.
Fast forward 3 years, I still love my job down here in LA and I am doing great, even though the economy sucks and it's been a hard year. After my experience with old friends in my hometown, I'm weary of making friends ever again. I might never. Anytime I make friends down here, I just assume they want something or I'm just being placated. I end up ghosting them and going hermit mode. In the last year I've gotten really deep into Dcity.io and Splinterlands.
I stopped using Facebook and talking to most extended family and random old work friends around 2020. All of the COVID and BLM and Election politics was getting out of hand. I was sick of waking up every day to witness everyone bickering. What was the point? I had like 500 friends on facebook and maybe 10 of them would care if I died. It's been almost 2 years and I only use facebook for marketplace, and my only friend on there is my wife.
With the combination of this, I really have no friends in real life. I hang out with my kids and my wife in all of my off time. I work, then I come home and work my online businesses, play some video game, and dabble in crypto. I have a few really good meme friends, like we exclusively share offensive memes and once a year show up to a punk show together. I have two tech bro friends that sometime contact me to talk about beer and games. Everyone else is an acquaintance or a ghost. I have never been very close with my family, I appreciate everything they did for me, but I also loath it. If that make any sense? I was neglected and told I would fail a lot as a kid, that's a story for another day.
I had something hit me real hard the other year. The two tech bro friends both moved back to my hometown, like a year after I left. Probably would have been a great support network if they had been there when I was there. They bug me every now and again when I'm moving back. Never is always my answer. I failed there. There is no place for me there. I tried to make it work there. It's almost like needles when they say that, when they joke and make it look so easy that they make it there. They both work mostly remote from home making a ton, which they deserve for what they do. I don't even like going to my hometown to visit, because I feel like a loser when I'm there. I spent a year trying to find a job there. The best I could do there was a store manager at a box store while I was in school. The second I left I was offered a dream job making bank. That place is cursed for me.
Every now and then I try to put out feelers about hive and crypto to people. I tell them about how I make money on there and play with NFTs. I never find anyone that already knows anything. Then it becomes one of two things, "teach me to be a crypto millionaire" or "lol you collect monkey pictures, #rightclicksave". I'm starting to just shut people down when they ask me about crypto after they find out I'm into it. I'm sick of being a teacher, to people that probably won't even open a wallet. It's funny. I feel totally free writing all this stuff because no one I know will read it, no matter how much I told them about HIVE.
But whatever, I've pretty much accepted I won't have friends to hang out with in real life anytime soon, probably never. Oh, and also I'm a manger so I can't make friends easily at work (it's lonely at the top).
Speaking of NFTs, I recently bought the Splinterlands NFT called RUNI the other day. Here he is:
https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xd900381f15ca67be1895a3626df210e33c8d7590/22
He is a little basic, no hat or right arm and basic background :(. Although the components are pretty rare. >5% on each. He is also #22! Like he is the 22nd Runi of thousands to be minted :). If you want one, the general public can buy them on like November 3nd on Opensea!
https://opensea.io/collection/runi/drop
I'm looking for members for my guild on Splinterlands. Guild name is Cabal Coffers. I'm having a tough time getting enough people to join to get enough brawl awards to open a store. Open to anyone to join. Although if you miss brawls you will be kicked.
https://splinterlands.com/?p=guild&id=9bae6943045aafa0b20646284b9b586104bfc542&tab=
Has anyone else had a similar experience with any of this? Any idea on how to get rid of this defeat/impostor syndrome with friends in real life? I use to try to go to concerts down in LA, until I realized no one would go with me and I never meet anyone that wanted to hang out again. I use to go to the bar, same story. I use to play MTG and Warhammer, but all those people become event people and not friends. Like I play MTG with someone then think we are friends, ask if they want to hang out or do something else, then nope only MTG friend.
Don't really care if anyone reads this, feels good to write it out and maybe let it go. Don't feel like unloading this crap on my wife. No one else to really unload on. Anyways, you're nuts if you read this far. Have a great day.