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My isolated castle.

Metalhead

Metalhead

Metal health will drive you mad!
V.I.P Member
I have spent a small fortune into making a multi media man cave loaded with many gaming consoles, an extremely large library of movies, and a growing vinyl collection. I wanted to bring people in and make my man cave a happening place.

I feel like all of that was an epic waste of cash now. Most of my friends do not visit me here, and the ones who do only visit a couple of times a month.

I have something going here, but all my friends have grown up and moved on.
 
I will post photos of my living room man cave tomorrow. Currently my phone is charging as it was at 3% battery a few minutes ago.
 
BrokenBoy said:
Sorry you don't have any real life friends at the moment.
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Oh, I have a few real life friends, but they are unable to hang with me on weekends since they are all married and have wives to attend to. I need to attend more gay meetups in my area. All my real life friends are hetero and married.
 
Metalhead said:
I have spent a small fortune into making a multi media man cave loaded with many gaming consoles, an extremely large library of movies, and a growing vinyl collection. I wanted to bring people in and make my man cave a happening place.

I feel like all of that was an epic waste of cash now. Most of my friends do not visit me here, and the ones who do only visit a couple of times a month.

I have something going here, but all my friends have grown up and moved on.
Click to expand...
I am not sure if spending time, money, and energy on a special interest is necessarily a "waste of money", per se. In the end, you are engaged in an activity or interest that is mentally stimulating to you. The alternate perspective being that if you had nothing to do, think, study, create, etc., I am thinking that would be a waste of a life.

My wife has been, at best, tolerant of my special interests over the years. I take these deep dives, spend lots of money, time, and energy. She will protest from time to time. However, here is the thing with people like us, those special interests are special to us. It is extremely rare that any of us find another person with the same sort of passion for the same things. It's quite rare. A more common experience, I believe, is failing to engage people with our special interests, as most are uninterested. Sure, people are polite and sort of act as if it is really cool and interesting, but they'd rather talk about something else because they don't know enough about the topic to even know what to ask, let alone have a meaningful conversation. What it ends up being is an educational monologue that causes them to mentally shut down. So, don't expect people to be interested in your special interests, as those are for you, and you only.
 
Having a good space (even without company) matters. It is often an investment of time, money, and effort. (I have a book cave downstairs...that is an ode to my reading obsession.)

Paradoxically, as nice and utterly comfortable as the space is, I freak out a bit when we have people over. (Disruption of routine and chaos in my space; I'm a very non-peoply person.)

I like my spaces, they're bright, clean, and comfortable. They're a big part of my everyday and are often part of my social media nattering. Projects and spaces that we invest time and effort in are worth sharing whether via the internet or in person.
 
Metalhead said:
I have spent a small fortune into making a multi media man cave loaded with many gaming consoles, an extremely large library of movies, and a growing vinyl collection. I wanted to bring people in and make my man cave a happening place.

I feel like all of that was an epic waste of cash now. Most of my friends do not visit me here, and the ones who do only visit a couple of times a month.

I have something going here, but all my friends have grown up and moved on.
Click to expand...
Yes.
I slowly redid the shop here for the same purpose. Most of my friends died before I completed it.
 
I have a couple rooms dedicated to my special interests; I've never had a "perfect" visit from anyone. Most commonly, my wife steps in and plays tour guide, showing off things she find interesting and not really giving me time to info-dump. Many folks get a bit overwhelmed by what I have, as well. It's only recently that I've viewed this through the lens of me being on the spectrum, and it's been one of the important ways in which I stepped back and said to myself, "oh, now I understand! They're different than me. It's not NT to have two rooms filled with this kind of stuff, and to have this much knowledge about it."

There is some loneliness to it, but at least those rooms are a happy place for me.
 
If I lived anywhere near you, I would visit you. Really! I'm not into games, but we could listen to some records or watch a movie together. With the added bonus that I wouldn't have to worry about whether my visit might be misinterpreted as often happens with other males.
 
I would be right there with @Progster and it would be fun.
In agreement that I wouldn't have to worry about misinterpretation.
Do share photos! :)
 
I'm an off-and-on gamer on PS5. I'll send you a FR when I get plugged back in (I'm usually offline). GT is Solomandius. I don't play a lot, and we probably have different tastes (I don't play many JRPGs), but what the hell.

Sorry to hear that your friends aren't showing up as much as you'd hoped. You mentioned that they were married. There is research showing that married people are more insular -- pay less attention to their friends -- than singles. So, it makes sense. I've had the same experience with single male friends who suddenly get a girlfriend. I can pretty much count on them disappearing for 6 months, lol. The married guys will still come around (hopefully), if only to escape domesticity for a while.
 
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Nothing wrong with making your castle comfortable, even if you are the only one who sees it. ;)
 
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