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Lots of video games.

…Does it have to be a healthy coping mechanism?

Embrace it. Find comfort in yourself.

I picked up a sport this year. People are surprisingly friendly.

I endure, painfully.

Poorly.

I pretend to have imaginary friends in my head until it seems like real enough and the day passes.

There is a singular niche community that I involve myself with where I pop in and make highly desired items to give away for free.

It makes me feel like people care about me for a while. For now, that’s good enough for me.

Assuming this is coming from a lack of friendship:

Start with a pet, if possible. Then work your way up.

Getting my cat a few years ago helped take the edge off so I didn’t come off as so desperate or distant (oscillating between the two extremes).

Then slowly picked up effective habits and retrained bad habits in interacting with people. Still working on it.

If you mean you feel lonely within your existing friendships, there’s a degree to which that is “normal” or at least somewhat universal. Some philosophers would say true connection with another person is fundamentally impossible. But even if that’s the case, we can find meaning and beauty in the process of trying to achieve the unachievable. Happiness comes not from finally filling an unfillable lack (a mythical ideal), but the novelty or enjoyment of the process.

I focus on spending time with friends and family when I can. And video games when I can’t. I stopped pushing myself to do things I didn’t want to do also, that helped a lot with being disappointed in what I achieve. BG3 is nice therapy these days for me.

I don’t know if you’ve seen this before, but I recommend the Kurzgesagt video on loneliness.
It hit me quite deep, first time I saw it.

Sit through it

Distract

Though my lizard brain demands me to be around other people, most of the things that bring me genuine life satisfaction are just easier to do solo. When I’m at purely social events I also get this sense of dread that I could be making better use of my time.

The voice in my head is making contradictory demands, so I’ve learned to not feel bad for circumventing it. I have my own goals in life, instincts be damned.

I find that listening to people casually talking is usually enough to satisfy the lizard brain, so I listen to a lot of stuff in the background: YouTube video essays, Twitch Just Chatting streamers, etc. When it gets particularly demanding I’ll try engaging with the people, but usually I just let my subconscious listen while I’m focusing on more important stuff.

Watching others having fun together oddly helps me a bit. I might binge a youtube channel like Corridor Crew, for example. Sometimes I even prefer being “a fly on the wall” because I don’t have to participate and be drained of energy. I also don’t have to worry about feeling rejected or offending anyone (and thus no “social hangover”).