Making friends is hard

Publish date: 2022-07-15

I grew up in a small northern Ontario town in an even smaller Finnish / church cultural circle. Even as a shy young introvert, making friends in that kind of limited circle was not too difficult. My childhood was during the 1970s and 1980s, arguably one of the best periods to grow up in. When I later moved to Southern Ontario, got married and spent the majority of my time working, I was OK with only having acquaintances. As happens with most people, I no longer kept in contact with old friends. Now that I find myself in a state of semi-retirement (from web application development), I have the itch to try and make new friends. This seems not to be so easy, as there are many reasons why people find it difficult to make friends in the Internet age. One is that people are more selective about who they want to befriend. Understandably, they often choose to befriend someone who shares the same interests and values as they do. People also have a tendency to compare themselves with others on social media and feel inferior, which can lead them to withdraw from society.



Anyway, if you are still reading this, here is some information about me in case you want to see if we are ideologically compatible. I used to be religious but gave it all up around age thirty, realizing that life was too short to believe in fantastical nonsense. Also, as I grow older, I’ve come to realize that religions are so very often full of hate-based indoctrination, which I find highly ironic. Who is religion really helping these days anymore? I am left-leaning on the political spectrum and am so very tired of the conspiracy-insanity cliff that so many of the right-leaning seem to have fallen off of recently. It also is not easy being over 50 with a particular set of interests that I don’t seem to come across very often in my age group. For example, I am very tech-savvy and still play video games daily. I enjoy heavy metal music and horror movies. I like practicing on my electric guitar. I enjoy going out on day trips in the car. I do not care about sports at all, not even hockey (I know, blasphemy for a Canadian). I don’t drink or smoke (although I do occasionally like to vape cannabis). I don’t go to bars or go out dancing. I don’t exercise regularly, although I REALLY *REALLY* should. I like working on random website ideas for fun. I have zero fashion sense; almost all my clothing is black because I'm lazy and it's harder to notice stains. Also, I just like black. So basically, I’m a big nerd.

Do you live in the Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge area of Ontario and think that maybe we could be friends? Feel free to contact me using the form on this site or via any forms of social media you may find me on.