So this wasn't meant to be my next post, it was a very unplanned addition to the schedule. I have two other draft posts that I was intending to polish soon and post, but this is such an important lesson for us to learn or remember that I couldn't not take the time to write it now.

I have struggled in my new home for a while now. I have been here for over 6 months, but had relatively few friends. Sure I have a lot more online, some of whom I talk to daily, but people I know in person here are very rare.

But I knew I needed to get out of my apartment - this little box feels like a self-imposed prison some days. So I reached out to someone I met a few months ago but had not seen them since. We planned to meet at a regular meet up of industry-related people that happens here. It is a public event, anyone is free to come and go as they please - it is a bit of a mixer and casual networking event, and the one I went to months ago had been a fun experience, if slightly awkward.

To tell the truth I almost cancelled at the last minute, I even kind of set myself up to do so - I gave a "I have something on but I'm trying to get it finished" thing a few hours before.

Despite knowing how important socialising, friendship, and physical interaction is to mental health, fighting against the expected anxiety of new social situations is sometimes quite hard. I often have this feeling that I am imposing on people - making them do something that maybe they don't want to do by hanging out with me - that is part of my damage. But thankfully I overcame my initial anxiety, and I went out.

Even if I had only been out for a couple of hours, the night would have been a success - I met some great new people, I talked, I laughed, I learned, and most importantly - and this is the reason why social interaction is so, so, so very important to your mental health - I connected with people.

I'm sure there is sufficient research on this out there if you want to look, but even the deepest of conversations online cannot come close to the mental health benefits of in-person communication. I have regular Skype sessions with my best friend who lives some hours away from me, but as much as I enjoy them even these cannot reach the level of feel-good energy that a real in-person conversation generates.

Your typical day-to-day interactions such as buying food at the shops etc. can't even do it - those situations are basically scripted even if the words are a little different every time. However a real conversation which involves asking about someone, answering about yourself, the sometimes random and crazy directions the conversations take, giving and responding to body language, eye contact, sometimes physical touch, even just the act of laughing together - these are the things that fuel our souls without us quite understanding why.

So everyone, if you are feeling down or lonely, don't be an idiot like me and hide yourself away, even though it is so easy to do that. Meet up with a friend for coffee, go to an industry meet up like I did, find yourself a group based around something that interests you, do whatever you can to make those connections - you'll find the benefits will far outweigh the potential negatives that stop you from doing it in the first place.