Perhaps the biggest challenge of being off consumption is the difficulty of maintaining an active social life.
When you take away the context in which social interactions happen — eating or drinking out, or going out for a movie or a play — you basically make it really difficult for people to spend time with you.
A home-cooked meal, or a walk along the sea, works well once or twice, but, eventually, your friends are likely to tire of such simple pursuits, even if you don’t.
So, unless you invent new social contexts, not only dating, even meeting friends may become a problem.
It’s less difficult for me, because blogging provides me a context in which I can make new friends and keep up with my old friends. If you read my blog, you already know me, so meeting up for a walk or a home-cooked meal (or even my sleeping on your couch) will probably feel natural.
I’m hoping that Saturday Night Movie Marathons will become another such social context.
The idea is simple. We meet up on a Saturday night at someone’s place and watch four back-to-back movies, from dinner to brunch.