34F, Searching for someone who will help me stay away from electronics

I just had this funny thought. Many people share my interests, but I need to be honest with myself. What I need most right now is to spend less time around electronics for multiple reasons, including mental overload and generally feeling drained. What i'd really love is for someone to be on the same page as me about this because it's one of my highest values, along with staying away from drugs/smoke and alcohol. At the core is the desire to be as loving as I can to my body. If I can do that, it's easier for me to be loving to the whole world!

I guess I still use electronics because I spend a lot of my time on my own and it's a way to communicate. If I was to share my time with another, it would be amazing to just be present together and feel like that is enough, and yes, daily, not just once a week! Haha

For ten years I just used a cell phone hot spot for internet communication at home. Slow but works. If I needed downloads I drove to town to McDonalds or something.

Ultimately, you alone are responsible for your actions. No one can change you for you. If you want to do anything badly enough you'll figure out a way to do it. Most dont want anything badly enough to do the hard work (always alone), to get there.

I've noticed over the years most relationships seem to be one person looking for someone to "fill a hole" in their life, and then they become "a person to blame" when it doesn't work out. Since 99% of the time, a relationship wont work, it pays to adjust your expectations now, back to reality, where you alone are responsible for you. Your feelings are yours alone. Your thoughts are yours alone. Your emotions are yours alone. The only way anyone else knows about them is always after the fact (past tense) and only if you communicate it (temper tantrums, or poetry, or silence)... But never is anyone else responsible for your reactions to any stimulus except yourself.

Practice this, now, while single, and when you meet someone, you won't 1) settle for someone who isn't working on themself already, 2) won't expect them to "heal you" of problems they are not responsible for (your reactions).

Another thing to de-tech is get a retro phone (text email only) , delete all social media apps and accounts, and live your life like 99.9999% of all humans before you have successfully done.

That was my realization over the years for myself. Hope it helps.

Bj Murrey wrote:For ten years I just used a cell phone hot spot for internet communication at home. Slow but works. If I needed downloads I drove to town to McDonalds or something.

Ultimately, you alone are responsible for your actions. No one can change you for you. If you want to do anything badly enough you'll figure out a way to do it. Most dont want anything badly enough to do the hard work (always alone), to get there.

I've noticed over the years most relationships seem to be one person looking for someone to "fill a hole" in their life, and then they become "a person to blame" when it doesn't work out. Since 99% of the time, a relationship wont work, it pays to adjust your expectations now, back to reality, where you alone are responsible for you. Your feelings are yours alone. Your thoughts are yours alone. Your emotions are yours alone. The only way anyone else knows about them is always after the fact (past tense) and only if you communicate it (temper tantrums, or poetry, or silence)... But never is anyone else responsible for your reactions to any stimulus except yourself.

Practice this, now, while single, and when you meet someone, you won't 1) settle for someone who isn't working on themself already, 2) won't expect them to "heal you" of problems they are not responsible for (your reactions).

Another thing to de-tech is get a retro phone (text email only) , delete all social media apps and accounts, and live your life like 99.9999% of all humans before you have successfully done.

That was my realization over the years for myself. Hope it helps.

Thank you for sharing this, I agree that it is something that I can do more myself (and I have before for a big part). For three years (2022-2024), I did not use a phone or computer, only Alexa Device for calls. I also deleted my social media accounts in 2019, still don't use them.

I came back to the phone winter 2025 because I left my family's home and wanted to research various things for myself. After the research, I just found it more unhelpful than helpful. I've been meeting more people and noticing how much they rely on their phones as well. While I agree, I need to do my share to cut back more and more, I would still prefer to be around someone who does the same for themselves.

I guess what I meant by the phrase "help me stay away from electronics" was: Spend time with me without electronics! I won't bring mine and you won't either. Simple

Mariya Bee wrote:I just had this funny thought. Many people share my interests, but I need to be honest with myself. What I need most right now is to spend less time around electronics for multiple reasons, including mental overload and generally feeling drained. What i'd really love is for someone to be on the same page as me about this because it's one of my highest values, along with staying away from drugs/smoke and alcohol. At the core is the desire to be as loving as I can to my body. If I can do that, it's easier for me to be loving to the whole world!

I guess I still use electronics because I spend a lot of my time on my own and it's a way to communicate. If I was to share my time with another, it would be amazing to just be present together and feel like that is enough, and yes, daily, not just once a week! Haha

Although a family issue is disrupting my normal lifestyle right now, I live in a national forest with basically no cell coverage. I have wifi in the house. Being an author, I use my laptop to write and do podcasts, and a little social media to promote my work. A lot of that is scheduled posts.  I live in the mountains and am outdoors most days and nights, living off the land.  There is also a coastal area where I like to spend winters that is even more remote - only 2,000 people in a large county that is mostly coastal swamps and woods, so I can go out for days and never see anyone, just focus on filling the freezer with meat and seafood. I live modestly, but on my own terms. Let me know if you would like to discuss.

I think any social interaction that is positive can help with staying away from electronics. I’m trying to get to know more neighbors and townspeople for various reasons including that one.

It might be that group activities, like going on local nature walks, could let you meet new people. I have met some good friends and acquaintances that way. I know there is one foraging teacher active in your area whose book I have and like: https://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/tour-calendar

It is difficult as a human being but more and more I think we (human beings) are having to go out on our own, into the unknown, probing at places that we don’t remember existing; or in some cases literally places no one has gone before. It seems like a transition period we are going through and difficulty is a given. But I always find it helpful to trust in the unknown as it often seems to reveal bends in the road I never imagined were there.

I hope you find a good friend; even then the work is still hard, the road is long, the way is beautiful and terrifying. It is fine to grieve what we have come to, and it is fine to not do everything all at once and to be content with gradual progress. The wisdom we need for this positive change is slow to gather, it is hard to come by, hard to master; it will not be found in a day or even a year. But there are small places to rest, small breaks between the clouds, sun midst pouring rain, and they help us to continue.

M Ljin wrote:I think any social interaction that is positive can help with staying away from electronics. I’m trying to get to know more neighbors and townspeople for various reasons including that one.

It might be that group activities, like going on local nature walks, could let you meet new people. I have met some good friends and acquaintances that way. I know there is one foraging teacher active in your area whose book I have and like: https://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/tour-calendar

It is difficult as a human being but more and more I think we (human beings) are having to go out on our own, into the unknown, probing at places that we don’t remember existing; or in some cases literally places no one has gone before. It seems like a transition period we are going through and difficulty is a given. But I always find it helpful to trust in the unknown as it often seems to reveal bends in the road I never imagined were there.

I hope you find a good friend; even then the work is still hard, the road is long, the way is beautiful and terrifying. It is fine to grieve what we have come to, and it is fine to not do everything all at once and to be content with gradual progress. The wisdom we need for this positive change is slow to gather, it is hard to come by, hard to master; it will not be found in a day or even a year. But there are small places to rest, small breaks between the clouds, sun midst pouring rain, and they help us to continue.

Well said! Thank you for sharing. A friend who doesn't take their phone out on nature walks haha 👏

Mariya Bee wrote:I guess what I meant by the phrase "help me stay away from electronics" was: Spend time with me without electronics! I won't bring mine and you won't either. Simple

My recommendation - do what you want of course - is to always lead by example. Be the change, etc. If you want to be elctro-distraction free, you can do that even when others dont. In fact, that's exactly the time when you grow the most - when you overcome rather than avoid something. Real life goes THROUGH the tough spots; the e-life goes around and gets lost and takes longer and the problem you were trying to escape is still around to haunt you again.

A spiritual recommendation: find something you love more to replace what you love less. For example: you dont get over a "vice" (alcoholism let's say) by trying to drink less. Being an alcoholic proves you're already unable to self control. There are 4 things I can think of that will stop someone from doing something they love (like being an alcoholic):

1. Lose absolutely everything & be unable to continue drinking
2. Hate yourself so much that youll do anything to change it (few ever realize this)
3. Find something more lovely and more worthy of affection and attention
4. Die (most do this!)

Now lets apply to electronics:

All things are good when used rightly - electronics are a means to an end. "Social media" is a means to socialization. That absolutely doesn't happen online, but only in real life. Perhaps a way to escape the death-spiral would be to use something like meetup dot com app and find a group or event near you where you can go participate in something. I found this helpful after a breakup where I wanted to go hiking and camping, but lost my partner, and so I found a group of people and joined them on their plans. I got to know lots of great people from the group and have traveled with them all over the world since, and made some lasting relationships along the way.

No matter what you do, or what happens, stick with it. Nothing good is easy and rarely is what is easy, right.

I deleted all my social media Nov. 2019 because I knew it was about to get crazy and I was not wrong. I still stayed abreast of things through podcasts (which are "aggregators" of information and distilled what was worth knowing into reasonable time chunks for consumption as I had time - no time limit!). For the first 3 months I was "addicted". Deleted apps and would open my phone to find them and they werent there. It was like a phantom limb after an amputation or something. I didn't tell anyone I was going to do it either, I just did it. What that did was "reveal" how many of my 3000 friends are really friends at all. Since then life has been so much more peaceful and simple and I have replaced all that wasted time with much more profitable things. Currently I'm building a 2nd tiny home on my land, and a rocket mass air and water heater with a cook surface, and making swales and all kinds of projects.

Time is a commodity. High value, limited quantity. Know your worth and dont waste it on anything that wont be important in 5 days, 5 months, or 5 years from now.

All the best!

and when you find that special someone they will know you like them because you wont be staring at a screen while they are trying to stare into your eyes! ;)

I sent you another purple moosage...

....To Mariya... I sent you another purple moosage...

Bj Murrey wrote:and when you find that special someone they will know you like them because you wont be staring at a screen while they are trying to stare into your eyes! ;)

I don't usually bring my phone with me when I go to places with people I trust :)

& Glad you left social media too, I left in Sept 2019 which is close to your date, it was so clear that it was going downhill. It's not about socializing like it used to be when it first became popular (around 2005). Now it's about seeking approval and attention... Something we strongly need to give ourselves.