How much socializing is right?

Oh dear... Well would you say a person who stays home most of the time except going on shopping (loves shopping including vegetable shopping), likes to visit relative once in a week, and one of the friends once in a week, apart from weekends with a bunch of relatives and friends abnormally social? I find it hard to digest that people who squeeze in two visits during the weekdays, and a whole day's of gambling on weekends are reasonably social. And mind you, in addition to these, there are occasional parties.

I used to be quite good at visiting, phoning emailing but I soon realised that it was a one sided affair. Now I too have joined the band wagon but I am not liking it one bit!

Keeping in touch is what is lacking these days except when they require a crowd to attend their celebrations. The set up that you have described would fall under the category of 'over-doing'

myLot wanted to see how innovatingly social you can be...

I am THIS much socializing... This much! This much.... This much (WINKS)

Does it make any sense though? Why couln't i use emots when i cross a hundred?!

I meant what I said. I like socializing with friends. But I don't mind if we don't either. I don't like socializing for the sake of socializing...like networking or those Page3 parties. I like socializing with smaller groups. Not more than 1 or 2 families together. Bigger parties sometimes are fine but my husband is definitely not comfortable there when it is a heterogeneous group. I'm actually comfortable...but I'm uncomfortable when he is uncomfortable (because I'll be at the receiving end of the wrath when we get home)and try to avoid crowds where I know he will not have all like-minded individuals.

ha ha tell me about it. Ok..so I rarely visit people. And when I do along with papa, there seems to be nothing I seem to be doing right! I am 52..I cant be forced into this consciousness..come on..I can use my discretion. But pa..he admonishes and monitors me in front of others..I guess part of my repulsion towards socializing stems from that. Take for example the other day..we went to the hospital ..I took an aunt to the emergency room. And there he was shouting at me in front of the nurse because I had answered some question which the aunt on bed was supposed to answer..oh boy..the nurse must have understood what hell I have lived. :)

Well, you told me the environment your parents gave you, and the one that your husband is giving you. However, you have not mentioned what you like even though you have mentioned that you dont mind either situation. You need to be either here or there. :)

I agree, but there are some chores that are more important, some can be pushed off until the weekend...

I know many people compromise on their household chores to maintain high social life. They either dont do work at home, or get other members of the family do it for them. I think that is disgusting.

How occassional is occassional - that is what I wanted to know. :)

Perhaps, when there are family celebrations, on holidays, at parties.

That is fine..and I should say normal. :)

You have time, and still you visit only on weekends. :) Ok..how about your cousins? Do you visit them every weekend or do they visit you every weekend.

That is ok..:)

Well its a little different with me because I moved away from Boston 3 years ago. So the rest of my family is there, I don't have too many people here.

Twice a month is just fine! I'd say it is normal. :)

So you would have preferred more social life. :) I think 2 or 3 PhD's are eccentric/marginal. I think they've set the bar up for next generation.

I am not really interested "social life" : I receive often invitation cards for various openings, but I rarely go to these openings : I hate social life when you have to listen 3 speeches to be allowed to eat two canapés and drink a cup of champagne. No, I feel alone sometimes, and it is why I like a site like myLot, opened 7/7 and 24/24.

Yeah face to face is ideal. The other person doesnt get to hide the feelings. :)

Hehe..I don't feel comfortable talking to others over the phone. Maybe because they can't hear me clearly- I don't know if I am talking to fast but people always say ha? what? I can't hear you.. speak slowly things to me so I would prefer to meet or sms them. i will try my best to always keep i touch with everyone around me~(^^)

@thsids..all his friends are girls...and there are ladies in his office whom he wants to be friends with. He cant possibly talk to another girl in front of a girl! Come on..he ain't a miser.

Hi bro About talking on phone, I rarely make outgoing calls.. c'mon I dont believe the miser you

Actually kalyaniji, part of that discomfort in company may be due to lack of confidence may be? For example me. I have not really had a normal home to relate to throughout my childhood. Always been hostels, and back home, all alone at home. So I didnt really understand it for better part. As I grew up, there were plenty of things that seemed to be something that people laughed at because I didnt know. And my basic drawbacks like being slow in working added to it. My father too reprimanded me often about my social skills. In the process, I dont really fancy socializing. Later on financial problems virtually made me a recluse. Now, i have found a way to enjoy my loneliness. Honestly, I dont like any change in the status quo. :)

Effectively, the older generation and young ones affect your social life. Before your marriage, how was it with your parents? Did they visit relatives every second day or were visited by relatives every second day?

Me and my husband lived with my parents before we where married. So we saw them every day. We would go every few days to his moms or his dads house. We both where working at that time. Then we moved and then we lived with his grandparents in there house till I was about 5 months pregnant after we got married. So we saw them every 3 months they would come to town his grandparents and stay a month to maybe a few days. When we lived near all of our family it was based off of our work and the holidays when we had time to see them. I worked almost every day and my husband worked almost ever day so at the end of the day all we wanted was to go home, eat dinner and go to bed. We didn't have a scheduled of when we had to go or not go. We just call over and say hey is it go time to stop by. Even know that we have our own place, one child to care for another one on the way when his grandparents are in town we see them almost every day if not we talk to them on the phone. Our daughter is there first great granddaughter. When I was growing up we didn't see my grandparents besides every 3 years maybe longer. My husband he was use to being shuffled back and forth to his moms house to his dad's house seeing both sides of his family having both sides of his family. His cousin she is the same age as us and lives in the apartment we live in together so we see her every few days when she isn't working. She works a lot right now. Now that we live 9 hours away and 2 states away from almost everyone. We see them a few times a year. I call my parents ever other day when I'm not busy. I don't really talk to my brothers we just don't get along every well and we all have our own lives to live. My husband tries to call his mom every week or she'll see us facebook. The same with my husband dad he see what we say online. My husband doesn't talk to his dad. He'll call when he can to talk to his aunts or uncles and his other grandparents. We call his grandparents that live here half of the time once a week when they are not in town so we aren't bothing with the other grandkids. That is just how we live.

Aw...that is a lot of visiting from my standards. :) I have a bunch of reasons that I could list which make me averse to socializing. People are nasty to each other, they are mean they are jealous, they are social because they want to flaunt what they have and not because they truly have any love in their hearts for others, and many a times they are there because they are bored and want to stir something to talk about. I dont know if this is the kind of social life you have come across but my assessment of it is something like that. And I dont find it green either.

Well I used to live far away from my family, much farther than 25 km, that's why I think I would want to spend more time with them, at least for a while. I only visit people if I really want to spend my time with them. Flaunting what I have doesn't count, I don't have anything I would want to flaunt, but I agree many people do that. If I'm bored I can make myself busy. But it's a good point that it's not green.

So you accept that telephoning is more logical than visiting? But hours..what do you have to talk about..

It's more convenient because you can't go to your house every weekend. If your family is 25kms away from you then it might be very hassle to go there and visit every weekend. I'll have to take the option of calling them once in a while.

Well, the kind of social life I've seen as a grown up invariably leads to a lot of politics, and differences, and jealousies. That often led me to believe that people who have overwhelming need to socialize are not satisfied with themselves in some way. So they try to convince themselves that they are good enough by getting others approval. They dont skip any opportunity to dress well and go out. They also give large gifts even if their husbands are borrowing within the family. The whole objective is getting an ego satisfaction, which incidentally they could have got by simply improving their cooking. But they cant be bothered with that. I am speaking of excessive socializing not once or couple of times month kind. From others perspective - it can be tiring to take such person out on drive every second day merely because staying at home can get on nerves. It must be tough balancing expansive ways and smoothening the nasty moments that often arise with such folks. It is also tough for those who receive gifts because it increases their expenses without any fault of theirs! I mean, return favors have to be of nearly the same value, and then, when everybody is in contact so regularly they cannot give a costly one to one, and cheaper one to other. People are forced to forego what they would want or need because they have to spare monies for social life and such gifts. And believe me it can be a big expense. A sense of competition also comes up with such people. These are my observations and feelings. May be I am wrong. I also feel it is wrong to socialize excessively as traveling requires petrol or diesel. We dont have much to waste it this way. Do we?

I understand kala. I was in hostels. Nobody visited me. Out here, they were acting as if they were such well wishers. :) So I played along till I found more gory details..which also I learnt because of socializing. So yes, socializing is truly not my cup of tea. I kind of approach it with fear. :)

Nope. :) But I would welcome you all. :)

suny..I ate all those biscuits.. there are some crumbs remaining..be a sport and eat them. :) @jazel_juan..I understand. I am born like that. :(

There are a lot of advantages of not having real life friends..especially the mean ones. :) They dont encroach upon your time when you are watching your favorite television program. :)

Now you bring me to my next question. What would you call being sane? :)