I don't want to travel or go on vacation. Does that make me anti-social? If it does, what should I do to change? Despite my youth and (relative) resources, I feel little to no desire to travel, experience new places or go on vacation. Reasons for this feeling include:
1) In general, I get more enjoyment out of ideas than experiences or meeting people. Ideas, even art, seems best explored in my home, or at least my hometown, in my comfy chair where I have access to a library and the Internet. While I could potentially travel for the sake of visiting museums and what have you, my taste hardly feels refined enough at 21 to appreciate many of the Great Works or even the lesser ones enough to justify traveling to see them, especially when I'm already in a big city with lots of those institutions to enjoy.
2) I tend to think of travel as a kind of privilege and, hence, associate it with guilt (previously). Just by living in the US and even without trying, at a very young age I've already traveled more often and seen more places than most people throughout world history would see in their entire lives, and more than many in the developing world do now.
3) I like my job / local extracurriculars, and anticipate liking them for a long time. Additionally, both are really important to me. Given that, it seems silly to step away from them, even for a week or a month. The one international trip I have taken, through a volunteer program three years ago, caused me great frustration because the directors just didn't give me enough stuff to do and expected I'd be more interested in doing touristy things instead.
4) I'm a generally introverted, home-body sort of person.
I'd think this was just one of many personal preferences every person has, but I have yet to meet anyone who feels the same way I do. When friends find out I feel this way, their reaction ranges from perplexed to saddened. As a single guy, it's very difficult to talk to other young single people, all of whom seem to care about traveling to near-obsession.
So, hive mind, I leave it to you: Do I need to change this about myself? If I need to change it, how would I even go about changing it?
1) In general, I get more enjoyment out of ideas than experiences or meeting people. Ideas, even art, seems best explored in my home, or at least my hometown, in my comfy chair where I have access to a library and the Internet. While I could potentially travel for the sake of visiting museums and what have you, my taste hardly feels refined enough at 21 to appreciate many of the Great Works or even the lesser ones enough to justify traveling to see them, especially when I'm already in a big city with lots of those institutions to enjoy.
2) I tend to think of travel as a kind of privilege and, hence, associate it with guilt (previously). Just by living in the US and even without trying, at a very young age I've already traveled more often and seen more places than most people throughout world history would see in their entire lives, and more than many in the developing world do now.
3) I like my job / local extracurriculars, and anticipate liking them for a long time. Additionally, both are really important to me. Given that, it seems silly to step away from them, even for a week or a month. The one international trip I have taken, through a volunteer program three years ago, caused me great frustration because the directors just didn't give me enough stuff to do and expected I'd be more interested in doing touristy things instead.
4) I'm a generally introverted, home-body sort of person.
I'd think this was just one of many personal preferences every person has, but I have yet to meet anyone who feels the same way I do. When friends find out I feel this way, their reaction ranges from perplexed to saddened. As a single guy, it's very difficult to talk to other young single people, all of whom seem to care about traveling to near-obsession.
So, hive mind, I leave it to you: Do I need to change this about myself? If I need to change it, how would I even go about changing it?
