A lot of people are diagnosing depression here. That's fine and all, but this problem is one that seems extremely common for people I know in their 30s and beyond, at least in the United States.

It seems that people hit a certain age and just retreat. First, they move to a city or suburb where they know nobody so they can have a yard, drive to a Dairy Queen, and/or earn $15,0000 more. They enjoy the new lifestyle for 5-7 years—they get a car, they work on their house, maybe they have a kid. Then they look around and ask themselves, "What's the point of all this?" The thing that makes life worth living, which is, by and large, human connection, is just not there. Often all this is precipitated by a couple settling down into a relationship, then ignoring or uncultivating prior relationships and becoming 100% of each other's social lives, or, alternately, the development of workaholic habits combined with moderate addictions to boring things like sleeping pills or TV.

The reality is that maintaining or, even more difficult, creating a social life in your 30s and beyond requires energy, organization, thick skin, and relatively strong social skills. Often people don't have even one of these, let alone all four. And, as people age, and careers peak or stall, it becomes even more obvious that the only thing that really matters in life is human connection. Having kids helps here, but only so much.

A few decades ago, there were thriving cultures of local community that it was almost difficult not to join. People would, by and large, go to church. They were part of civic organizations like the Knights of Colombus, book club, weird utopian or improvement clubs (Bellamy societies), business associations, bowling league, Rotory Club, or INSERT WORKPLACE HERE Over 40s Poker. Local politics was a thing, the bar scene was a thing, dancing was a thing. The average person would be in ~5 of these. Nights where you would stay in would be more uncommon than nights you would go out.

What happened? It's hard to say exactly, and there are lots of books on it (Bowling Alone is a good one). But cable TV and the internet, I think, are big parts of it. It was just not possible before a certain year for the average person to stay in all the time. It was just too boring. TV sucked There were, functionally, no games as we now know them. No porn as we now know it. No social media, no link aggregators, no chat rooms, no dating apps. There were drugs, but they were more social drugs (coke and booze). MJ was pretty bad and niche, people were popping massively fewer sleeping pills and opiates. If you wanted to watch a movie, you left your home. If you wanted stimulation, or your fix of dopamine, probably you left your home.

It was a more dangerous world. People would booze, and fight. There was more serious crime before the 90s, discrimination. People fucked more, and with more people. There were predators. People would also get together and drink, and talk about ideas. There were social movements that were actually kind of new. People would get together and drink, and make music. There were scenes, undergrounds. You had the Harlem Renaissance, the Berlin School. Places were a thing, you would go to another city and the scene would be a different scene and the culture a different culture. There would be a cene around a bar, or a street, or a music store.

What OP is experiencing is the default state in the US in 2022. The inertia is to stay inside, be alone or with your immediate family, and to get your fix there. We've invented technologies of approximation and recapitulation. Social Media approximates human connection. Porn approximates sex. GrubHub approximates going to a restaurant. On social media and 24/7 news, all prior social and artistic movements are recapitulated. We try out the 60s in 2020, we try out the 70s in 2022. We larp as Malcolm X or Ira Glasser or Ronald Reagan. Place is collapsed, Montreal and Berlin get the same internet as San Francisco. There are fewer murders and less STDs and fewer missing children. There are fewer artistic movements, serendipitous connections, long afternoons betting on the races. Tolkein doesn't meet Lewis, Diddian doesn't meet Dunn, Hemingway stays away from the bulls. Unless you make a big effort, you live inside your head, and your head is inside and staring at a screen.

So maybe OP is depressed, but maybe it's not just OP. Maybe this time and place has something to do with it.