RE: ULTRA INTROVERTS

On Ebay someone from Brazil is interested in buying a 1980s 
mechanical keyboard I repaired a year and a half ago. I was almost 
ready to give up, take the listing down, and keep it for myself, 
since after a year and a half it was looking like it wouldn't sell 
for a price that I could justify to myself after the really 
excessive amount of time I spent on repairing it. Working on 
mechanical keyboards is a real pain - just too many keys, and 
they've all got to be perfect. Anyway I thought I'd better check 
none of the keyswitches had stopped working again after so long in 
storage. No worries though, all seems fine, but I figured typing up 
a phlog post would be a good way to make sure, since I really don't 
want to be dealing with demands for a return and refund of a 3Kg 
keyboard from South America as my reward for all that work 
restoring it.

Slugmax pointed out an article about "ultra introverts" which 
seemed almost too relevent to me, as someone who I think has only 
talked to a couple of people in at least the last four days, and 
they were both within the 5-10min I spent at the post office in 
town yesterday.

gopher://republic.circumlunar.space/0/~slugmax/phlog/2026-09-06-ultra-introverts

I think I've mentioned before that I don't like the idea of 
attributing labels to people, and as I noted in my post 
2026-06-27.2Thinking_by_Numbers.txt, I could never really pin down 
the term "introverted" because it's often used by people who 
compared to me seem like outright extroverts. But the article 
Slugmax points to does make a pretty good case for me as one of 
these "ultra introverts".

I've been over this before, first in 
2020-10-05Running_from_the_Hurd.txt, where annoyingly I should have 
used the word "herd". I'm sure somewhere here I described my 
tempation towards going for drives late at night, long and aimless 
drives on the highways, then through the inner streets of country 
towns deserted in the frigid air of the very early morning. It is 
amazing how quiet such towns can be late at night. When I was 
wandering around Kerang getting lost while looking for my motel 
late at night after arriving by train on my one successful railway 
holiday, it was really incredibly quiet. I could hear the cooling 
fans of an ATM whirring from the other side of the road on the main 
street, and it felt freeing and comforting in a way that such large 
towns just never are when they're 'alive'.

But the great thing is that I don't have to claim the nighttime for 
my escape to such solitude, since it's just so deserted out here 
day and night where I live, but for a great deal more animal life. 
It seems to absurdly grandiose to say, but I think to myself that 
I've constructed a private little paradise tailored to myself here, 
for all my days and nights, and my only concern is to keep pulling 
some little trickle of money in from the outside world to support 
it with outside resources, and to placate the tax-hungry government.

That said, as I've often questioned my future ability to keep that 
trickle of money flowing on my own terms out here, it's funny that 
I have had in mind exactly the alternative career that one of the 
article's subjects chose. The idea of nighttime security work has 
been fixed in my mind as a possible fall-back for at least a few 
years. A simple job, bare minimum social interaction, and in the 
sort of deserted environment I like. The only problem is that since 
I live way out in the country where there's nobody around, no place 
nearby would ever need security at night. So I'd have some horrible 
commute through city traffic which I couldn't stand, or more likely 
sort out some sort of basic accommodation near where I worked 
(permanent site in a caravan park?), and travel back home just for 
weekends or something. Both options sound horrible, so I'd probably 
look at local (or at least more rural) daytime job opportunities 
first in the end, but it's interesting that I'd already been 
considering that.

I also like to visit places where there aren't any people on my day 
trips, except for the nagging hope that I might meet a girl 
somewhere - but that never works out well even when I do go places 
that are more busy. That indeed is the one issue for me, expressed 
here probably rather too frequently. I really just never meet women 
my age, and it does occour to me that the more detached I am from 
others, the less capable I become at that. Plus I don't want to be 
dragged into an environment where I'm obliged to socialise just to 
try and keep with a woman. I tend to assume that every woman lives 
a life that's quite opposite to my little paradise of isolation, 
and any sort of relationship would demand the destruction of that. 
It's probably not universally true, even the article mentioned the 
existance of introverted women and couples too, but it's likely 
enough that it puts me off.

The ideal relationship seems to me like it's be just one day a week 
or something. I'd hang out with the girl and do all the nonsense 
she likes, and of course have sex, then go back to my blissful 
isolation for the rest of the week. But it's probably not how a 
relationship can really work. Besides how the concept would 
probably be taken as an insult by any woman, even I still vaguely 
remember the strong sense of lust after being around girls I liked 
at school. They'd probably draw me out, and before I knew it I'd be 
living a life I hate just to fit in with them, probably failing 
before long and losing the relationships anyway.

But I think about it all day anyway, especially days like today 
(oops, now yesterday) spent repetitively building my electronics 
things to sell. Should I or shouldn't I? Should I _what_ anyway? 
The only ideas I've really had are to try and become a musician, 
and at best meet girls who'll want me to hang out at other crowded 
music gigs with them all the time. Or post a video 'personals' ad 
to random uncensored places on the internet of me going around the 
house naked talking about myself and maybe being weird enough to 
get viewed. Both ideas talked about and dismissed here before. Well 
actually a while ago in a fit of determination I did shoot such a 
video, and edited it. The question since has been whether to upload 
it or not. At least without knowing people to begin with there's 
not much to lose from it.

I wasn't actually going to mention that video here, since I can't 
imagine anyone thinking it's a good idea. I guess all the nice 
clicky Alps keyswitches in this, perfectly working, keyboard have 
pulled it out of me with sheer typing pleasure. Better package it 
up and sell it quick before I reveal anything else...

 - The Free Thinker