This is going to sound a little strange, but playing music on stage works for me. At least in moderation, and provided you aren’t the lead singer/MC who has to interact with people. You just wanna be some guy in the corner jamming on whatever you jam on.

You kind of get the best parts of being in a social situation in terms of seeing new places, having interesting experiences you can ponder for days to come, and occasionally getting free food and/or a green room where you can veg out in isolation and no one expects anything of you. But you can avoid the negatives: having to make small talk, looking awkward with nothing to do and no role to play, being labelled antisocial, getting roped into some horrible activity you did not sign on for, etc.

And it turns out there are a lot of introverted musicians. You only really need one extravert in a band.

Apparently, it’s an American thing, though my Canadian daughter was showing off her beans on toast yesterday which left my puzzled and googling.

At the beginning of the blackout, I thought if spez changes his mind I would go back, but while I haven’t severed all ties, I feel reddit growing increasingly distant to me now. I have long felt that it’s not great when one profit-driven entity takes over an entire category of social media, and I’ve found some kindred spirits here.

In the Fediverse, I feel I’ve discovered a new continent with a strangely medieval society, and to my surprise, it’s been winning me over despite the feudal bickering.

I haven’t severed ties completely but have unsubscribed from almost everything but a few fringe subreddits that haven’t developed communities here yet. And I joined /r/redditalternatives and /r/modcoord during the blackout.