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Rowan Sanan (he/him/his), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a hard time making friends. 

Even when I was young, outgoing and hyper, I only ever had about three close friends, and I don’t even remember how I became friends with them. It could have been because we met at school and eventually started developing interests in different hobbies, some of which ended up being in common. 

When I got a little bit older and moved away from my childhood home, I no longer had consistent contact with those friends. I entered a new school and realized I had nothing in common with any of my classmates, and that made me extremely anxious. I became a recluse, not speaking to anyone unless spoken to, and struggling to find myself in a school that seemed to not want me there. I quickly realized I needed to leave that place and find somewhere I felt right. 

I was lucky in that new school, thankfully, despite my new quiet and shy energy. One of my closest friends to this day was a new kid just like me, and we hit it off and became inseparable very quickly. We soon became a trio with another friend, and the thing that bonded us together like glue was writing. We’d all dabbled in writing geeky sci-fi or fantasy fiction for years before we met each other, but we finally had other people to bounce ideas off of. We crafted stories together, building expansive settings and developing complex backstories in the back playground of our school. I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. 

When I went off to high school, I was terrified. I’d been separated from my closest friends, since I chose to go to another school that had a fine arts program I wanted to take. I still remember the racing of my heart on my first day of orientation. Then, I heard a new classmate talking about a book I liked at the time during a class discussion. I knew that was my chance, so I found her after class and gathered up all the courage I could manage. I genuinely felt like I was going to pass out, but I was able to speak to her. I’m very glad I did. She and another classmate she was speaking with became some of the only friends I’d make through high school.

In university now, I find myself extremely lucky to be attending a music program where everyone around me has a common passion and interest. While I still get extremely anxious whenever I speak to anyone, it helps to know that I don’t need to find a specific niche to tie myself down to, because we all at least enjoy the same thing. Still, the friends that I have become closest to share other hobbies and interests with me, like video gaming. 

Now, to give reason to this giant ramble about my childhood and life: if it hadn’t been for the hobbies I had that were once considered geeky or strange, I might not have made any of the friends I still hold dear to this day. Even now, we have discovered new hobbies and interests to bond over that we all enjoy, like Dungeons & Dragons, board games and more. It’s hard to stay close to everyone now that we’re all spread out across different schools and cities, and we don’t know everything that is going on in each other’s lives anymore. Still, there’s a sense of community that grows when you discover something in common with the people you care about. It’s one of the things that keeps people from drifting apart as they get older. Many adults choose to start or join hobby groups to maintain or discover friendships. Teens and young adults sometimes find online communities where they can work on their virtual hobbies in collaboration with others. 

Hobbies provide perfect starting points for people to bond, discuss their strategies or ideas and grow closer together. These starting points become all the more important the older we get, with a society around us that pushes long workdays on us and takes the free time we have to spend with friends. Hobbies create safe spaces for people to come together, which can improve people’s moods and outlooks on life, especially if that hobby is considered geeky or different. As the world around us gets more and more uncertain, the only things we know will stay with us are the bonds we create with others that we choose to uphold and develop throughout our lives. 

Starting those bonds often seems daunting, so why not start with a fun hobby?

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Rowan is a university student who loves to write books and poetry, read all kinds of books and spend time with his family and pets.