>>85890I was a loner kid back before the internet existed. It sucked. But I got by. You did what you had to do. Just spent more time at the library and shit. Haven't been to a library in years now, though.
I remember a band trip in middleschool. Now the internet did exist at this time, although it wasn't something portable. So there I was stuck an entire province away. No smartphone or any of that shit. And I had no friends. And we didn't really get to spend any time in the hotel room. Had a busy itinerary. The local museum, art gallery, yeah okay I'm into that shit, but then they had a "surprise" on the final day. For 8 full fucking hours, I guess they arranged some stupid dance between all the schools that went there to participate. Bigass crowd, noisy venue, had no friends. Even if I wanted to make one it was too noisy to make conversation to do so. Was completely unprepared, no paper and pencil to draw with, and even if I had a book with me it would have been too dark to read.
8 full hours of literally doing absolutely nothing. Finding the quietest place I could (which was some little courtyard at the venue where people would go outside for a cigarette) and I sat there on some picnic bench doing literally absolutely nothing. It was a special kind of hell. Hiding out there alone inside my head while all the other kids did the boot scoot boogie.
I feel like a 2022 middle-schooler would probably have a mental breakdown from something like that.