A post about socializing with chronic fatigue...
I do meet people face to face, but can only handle that for a few hours a week due to chronic fatigue. That's not nearly enough to satisfy all my social needs, so I spend most of my awake time online to supplement in-person interaction and that's where the difference with able-bodied people becomes painfully obvious.
Most people can only squeeze in an hour or two of active browsing some days, or a minute once or twice an hour throughout the day, while I'm pretty much constantly refreshing the page for 12-14 hours every day. With tens of people to follow, there's something more or less interesting to read from one or another regularly enough. But once I become especially interested in a message or comment from a particular person, it becomes very obvious they spent a whole lot less time online than I do. Then it turns into 10+ hours a day "waiting" for them to come online for an hour if I'm lucky.
Of course I can't and don't blame them. If I had more energy, I would be offline a whole lot more too. But that doesn't make the major imbalance any less frustrating. Shallow entertainment helps pass the time and I'm very grateful for that, but I need more and nobody seems to be able to provide that in any quantity that is significant in comparison to my days. Again: no judgment whatsoever to anyone because I fully understand other people's perspective, but it is something I struggle with nevertheless.
Most people can only squeeze in an hour or two of active browsing some days, or a minute once or twice an hour throughout the day, while I'm pretty much constantly refreshing the page for 12-14 hours every day. With tens of people to follow, there's something more or less interesting to read from one or another regularly enough. But once I become especially interested in a message or comment from a particular person, it becomes very obvious they spent a whole lot less time online than I do. Then it turns into 10+ hours a day "waiting" for them to come online for an hour if I'm lucky.
Of course I can't and don't blame them. If I had more energy, I would be offline a whole lot more too. But that doesn't make the major imbalance any less frustrating. Shallow entertainment helps pass the time and I'm very grateful for that, but I need more and nobody seems to be able to provide that in any quantity that is significant in comparison to my days. Again: no judgment whatsoever to anyone because I fully understand other people's perspective, but it is something I struggle with nevertheless.
