It's not easy to talk about being lonely. You feel like a f*cking loser.
But as we become adults and drift apart from many of our childhood friends due to life's inevitable responsibilities, it's common to find that your friends and acquaintances are all people you know from work.
Even if you don't consider them your BFFs, you probably spend at least 37.5 hours a week with them - more than you probably see your other friends or family.
Whether you realise it or not, this daily social interaction tends to be really good for your mental health.
However, this becomes a problem when you're self-employed. How the hell do you socialise when you're on your own for most of the day and communicate with your clients primarily via email or FB Messenger?
It's not something I ever thought about before I became a freelance copywriter. The idea of being a strong and independent copywriter with my own working schedule and "no boss" was understandably intoxicating.
"I never have to leave the house? Great!" I used to think.
Flash forward a few months and soon you realise that human brains need constant everyday stimulation, whether it's socialising with colleagues, saying hello to passers-by on the street, or just travelling to a workplace which is away from your house.
"If I spend another minute in this house I will burn it to the ground" is now my daily mantra.
This mixture of loneliness and boredom will creep up on you sooner than you think. The irony is that I'm quite an introverted person who likes time to myself, but it seems like I've ended up with WAY TOO MUCH time to myself.
Be careful what you wish for!
Desperate for something different, I soon invested in a laptop and went to work in coffee shops a few days out of the week. I found myself kind-of looking forward to ordering a Frappalappawhatever from the uninterested barista because it meant I would actually speak to another living, breathing soul in the daytime.
Don't get me wrong, I have good friends and family who I do see, but those couple hours of human interaction per day aren't enough to stop you from feeling bored and restless for most of the day, at least in my case. When you're excited to speak to baristas, you have a problem.
So after many months of slowly losing my sanity in my home office and trying to concentrate in noisy coffee shops, I've decided to try a co-working space in the pursuit of a more sociable working environment. It's early days yet, so I can't say for sure whether it's going to work in the long-term.
I feel like there are unwritten rules about these co-working spaces. I have so many questions.
1. I don't want to interrupt people who are in the middle of working, but am I allowed to accost them in the kitchen?
2. Are conversations encouraged on the smoking balcony?
3. Are all of these other freelancers looking for a social environment or are they just here for office space?
4. Is there some strange "bleasure" etiquette that I'm not aware of?
5. How much "free coffee" can I have before it starts taking the piss?
Right now, I feel like I'm filming an Attenborough documentary. I'm sat in the corner doing my work while simultaneously keeping an eye on everyone and how they interact.
The co-working space I'm at also doubles as a sort-of hangout place for regular people off the street, so it becomes even more confusing to suss out the lay of the land.
It's like being at secondary school again, honestly. I just wanna fit in and be cool, ya know? Tell me who the plastics are so I can befriend them and rule the school with an iron fist. Later, losers.
Ultimately, if I don't find a co-working space which is suitable for my needs, then I'm not sure what I'll do... Am I willing to give up this self-employed freedom that SO MANY people long for? Should I go back to a normal job just for the sake of my mental health?
I'm not sure how common this feeling of boredom/loneliness is among self-employed people. Perhaps it's a common affliction, or perhaps I'm just an attention whore. As someone who's been the frontman for a few bands, it's possible that I have an attention-craving limelight-hogging diva inside me.
I'd ask other self-employed people if they feel this way too, but unless the walls start talking to me, my pool of respondents is a bit small.