1. It’s amazing and terrible at the same time. I’ve been living like this for about 19 years now. I feel rich beyond my wildest imagination living like this even though I don’t have much money but it’s kind of like being rich in a shitty repressive country.
I first became a neet sometime around 10 years old. There was fucking nothing to do all day. The Internet was still 56k, Google didn’t exist yet, nothing on tv all day, no dvrs or on demand, video games were still $40 each, albums were still $15 each.
Now that technology has advanced I have 24 hour access for free to every movie, video game, tv show, book, podcast etc. ever made. The amount of content that I have gone through is fucking insane. In the last 2 years alone I have fully listened to over 1500 albums on Spotify. I’ve listened to over 700 3 hour podcast. I watch lectures and documentaries on Youtube every day. I have over a hundred games on Steam that i haven’t even installed yet. I have backlogs of things to watch and listen to and play that will take years to get through and by the time I do I will have several more years worth of new content. The sheer amount of content I have experienced compared to normal people I feel like I’ve already lived a few lifetimes.
If I won the lottery tomorrow I would pretty much choose to still live almost exactly the same as I do now. I would move into my own place and eat out more often but other then that things would pretty much be the same.
The downsides of living like this. I’m almost a 30 year old virgin. I have no friends. I have no health care whatsoever I haven’t seen a doctor in over 10 years never seen a dentist in my life. If i need stitches or break a bone too bad better get on Youtube and figure out how to diy it. I have to rely on others for all my financial needs. Just last week I got bitched at for spending $3 on fruit at the grocery store.
What lead me here? When I was about 10 years old my dad pulled me out of school to home school me. He’s a far right Alex Jones type libertarian who didn’t want the system brainwashing me. The thing is though he never schooled me at all. I would just stay locked in the house home alone until he got off work at 5pm. He never bought any text books or anything, never even tried to teach a single class.
I have no education, no skills , no experience, no transportation. The only work I can get is something in walking distance from a suburb that is part time and pays minimum wage. Even getting that is kind of a stretch given my history. If I could get a job that I am capable of doing and paid enough to live on my own I would do it in a heart beat. If I still have to live with my fucking dad it’s not worth the time loss.
2. I severely lack self-esteem and self-confidence. Imagine if you were a welder hunting for jobs. All the jobs that are available to apply are either heart surgeons or rocket scientists. Would you even want to apply? Even if you got through, won’t you not dread going to work, thinking what terrible mistake you might make today? That is how I feel when I look at job ads. It doesn’t matter how simple or complicated the job may be. I still doubt if I have the capability to do it, and therefore I don’t apply. I do have a graduate degree in STEM but that doesn’t instill any sense of accomplishment, confidence or self-esteem.
I doubt if I have a “passion”, and constantly think about having to endure 40 years of working day in and day out. The benefits of making money and spending it on consumption is not enough to endure the drudgery. I’m afraid I’ll lose my curiosity and thirst for knowledge once I am on this path.
In reference to the above, one of the very few things I enjoy doing is reading, especially non-fiction. I can spend hours at a stretch reading, everyday. If I start working, I wouldn’t be able to do so. Worse, because of the routine, I may even lose my sense of curiousity and stop reading.
I may also have undiagnosed mental illness. For one, I’m extremely shy and prefer being myself for the most part. In fact my most content time in history was when I didn’t leave home for two weeks, never saw nor spoke to a soul. I also desire to be a recluse. Since my social skills are below par, I have a hunch that my work life would be anxiety-inducing.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, I have enabling family members. I suppose they have the feeling that I don’t have the skills or the innate sense to tackle the world and therefore they don’t push me too much to get a job. For my part, I help around the house and do my share of chores.The singularly worst aspect of being a NEET is the concomitant feeling of shame. Every time the phone rings or some guests arrive, the need to hide or disappear is intense. To take control of that shame I can find a job but at that stage I’m trading for one anxiety with another. Instead of shame, I shall now be afflicted with daily work-related anxiety, of feeling like a worthless impostor who struggles to do any job.To a reader all these may seem like a list of excuses given by a spoiled man-child. To that, I have nothing to deny. You are right, and so am I.
3. What lead me to the lifestyle was overall depression, and being bullied a lot in school. It’s complicated but it sorta nudges me in the direction I’m currently in now.
I’ve been on the path for 10 years and I’ll be 30 in two years. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone but sometimes I can understand the need to get away from everything. Time is meaningless and everything just melts together. It didn’t really dawn to me it had really been ten years until I noticed I got a Facebook invite for my class reunion. I graduated back in ’05 and have made no contact with anyone I graduated with. I didn’t go to my class reunion even though I expressed slight interest in going. No car means traveling is difficult and I was too ashamed to ask for a ride.
Your family tends to wear on you as well from time to time. asking how you’ve been, what you’ve been doing with your life, and so on. Family gatherings are the worst and I feel like I have to explain myself every time even though they already know the answers to the questions they ask every year.
“How come you never visit?”
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend? Are you gay?”
“Why don’t you drive?”
“When will you ever get a job?”
“Well look who decided to come out of his cave!”
It’s little questions like these are the reason I never go to Thanksgiving or Christmas anymore.
Crippling depression, social anxiety, SAD (social avoidant disorder), SAP (Social Avoidant Personality), and various other little things tend to keep me from being normal. Personally, I have no motivation to better myself as a person. I practically live off SSI and things like a family, or a wife, are foreign to me. I don’t see myself in a marriage, or relationship. I’ve accepted the fact I will live alone, be alone, and die alone. But that’s okay. I’ll let others be happy for me.
I am effectively hollow and dead inside and frankly, I’ve just stopped caring. Peace and quiet come at a price it seems.
4. The neet life is simultaneously the dream and a nightmare. Life sucks dick because you have no purpose, feel like a burden, feel worthless, and generally have nothing worth doing 24/7. Depression is extremely easy to get because of this and it’s not fun. You’re also poor, so you have to rely on other peoples money to get by, which really doesn’t help the whole feeling worthless/depression thing. You’re not making progress in life by being a neet, either. You can be a neet for 5 years and you’ll see be in the exact same spot in life, with no money, and your personality will probably not have developed as much as it should have. That’s why the average neet is seen as a neck beard/man child. It’s hard to grow up living in the basement.
On the plus side, you do have unlimited free time, which is pretty much the dream. Is it worth it though? No. I don’t think losing progress on life is worth it at all.
What lead me here? 3 years ago I finished high school, had no idea what I wanted to be in life (and still don’t), went to college right away because I felt pressured to go, ended up in an extremely hard course that I didn’t even enjoy, dropped out, and haven’t been able to find a job because I have no experience to put on my resume.