How do you keep social life if WFH?

Those 3 hours you save commuting can be the ticket to a real social life as opposed to an office social surrogate.

The trick is to seek out people whom you enjoy spending time with in social settings. This can be e.g. through a gym, arts&crafts classes, uni courses, volunteer activities, sport clubs, nature clubs, cooking classes board game card chess d&d groups ... whatever your fancy.

Even if you are more introvert you will find these environments very welcoming.

Having a social life without the everpresent undertones of office politics and policies can be very invigorating

It's easy. You need to do regular activity with same group. To be clear the point is not if you are good at the activity it's to meet people: Team sports Improv Acting Running group Meditation group Etc etc

Point is you are seeing them repeatedly so friendships develop.

Especially good are retreats/activity weekends because you will spend concentrated time with people.

Good luck

At work, we have a permanent channel in Jitsi (a meeting in Teams will work too) that people can join when they have no other meeting going on. It's silent sometimes, but also the place where people ask silly questions that they would normally ask when standing at someone else's desk, or where people share non-work related stuff and discuss random things.

After two years of almost permanently working from home, it's grown to the place where the whole team just hangs when they're working to have someone to talk to when sitting alone at home, but also to ask serious questions, and equally so to talk non-work related banter from time to time.

Since the last few releases of Jitsi, we're also using breakout rooms to discuss some more in-depth things without annoying the rest of the team. Previously, those people would move to another meeting and come back when they're done. Now, they can stay in the one permanent meeting, and the rest can see them sitting in a breakout room, and go in and ask them when something urgent is going on.

I honestly think this approach has kept the whole team sane during 2+ years of full time working from home.

I'm in a position where I can choose to go to the office if I want to or not. Most of the time I much prefer working from home, this has definitely an effect on being able to become friends with my coworkers (which, in any case, almost none of them go to the office anyway).

I have also recently moved to a different country, so in reality, I don't have many friends here to begin with.

Luckily for me, I've never really felt the need as I am pretty active online anyway and never have a moment where I'm not chatting with someone or have someone to chat with. IRL I meet with friends once a week, once every two weeks for some beers and other related activities. It's enough for me.

I think, if you can't get the social interaction you need from work then it might be worth looking into any sort of social clubs and whatnot that you could take on during the weekend. Photography, painting, whatever you fancy there are sure to be clubs in your city :)

My suggestion: Actively work at building a lifestyle that doesn't revolve around the office/work.

Do you have friends outside of the office? Favorite places to eat and talk? Meetups you can go to meet and hang and talk about things you like? A conference "hallway track" to meet like minded technical people? Hell, Bumble even has a bff feature if that works for you. When I moved to a new city, I met some of my current best friends through a date that didn't pan out. It was scary to meet a total stranger when I didn't have friends in the city, but people are generally nicer than you might think.

I hope this helps at least a bit.

1.5 hours is like Eindhoven to Amsterdam, IE: from one end of the country to the other... really not bad (IE: trains are fun, have wifi, etc) but I'm wondering here if part of the problem is that you are far away from where you might have more connections?

Either way, whether you are in some tiny village or the big city, get out of your flat and down the street - to the pub, the gym, the church, etc. Whatever your thing and whoever your people are, they are out there somewhere and it's just a matter of figuring out where to find them. Yes you have to put yourself out there and that can be hard (I'm horribly shy and introverted myself) but that's the cost to connect. I'm wondering - even though Dutch people are wonderfully poly-linguistic, I'm gathering that you might be foreign and I'm wondering if you are concerned about your language skills? Is that feeling like a barrier for you? Best way to improve on that is get out and start interacting.

While I was freelancer I worked almost all of the time from home. I was also looking at getting a desk at some coworking place. What I do is working from neighborhood cafes, libraries, etc.

Now I've switched jobs. I work at company that has hybrid work policy. This was one of the main reasons for the switch - to be among the people again.

I go to office at least once a week.

Talk to your neighbours, go to a park and make small talk with someone who seems lost, take up a sport, etc. Just do things someone with good work-life balance might do, because if your work is the place to socialise for you it is time to accept that you do not.

Prioritise the social life and do it first.

Unless you're applying yourself to some great quest, work is a secondary task in life. You've got this backwards.

What do you want from life? Start at the top of that list and work downwards.

I have the same sorts of challenges you have. My way of solving it wasnt to do the complete opposite and go into the office. WFH 99-100% is a blessing. Regarding feeling sad/isolated - whatever - you need to find ways to combat this. The way I did this was starting a meetup group - so on time Im not working I can be running events with others primarily nights/weekends. This has helped me tremendously. I additionally will spend say friday afternoon at a local coffee shop. Hope this helps

I can’t speak for myself but my friends who lived in the tier 1 cities like London, NYC for work have all moved back to our hometown (DC). It’s good to return to where you have family, and friends from a preexisting social network.

So if you moved to the Netherlands just for a good job, then perhaps consider moving back to wherever is “home” and continuing to work from there. It might take a little negotiation but it would be worth it for your health and happiness.

> I’m generally a social person that enjoys conversations with people, and service energy from being social.

Almost any local bar (not a touristy place) can serve the need of "social interaction". The greatest thing is what you actually isn't needed to drink a lot or anything at all.

It's not a universal solution of course but being able to confirm what you are actually can interact with peoplr, even ones you never seen before (or after), greatly helps to scrath the social itch.

I recently moved to Annecy, France (and I'm not French) - my trick is to join expat groups on Facebook and and ask if any techies want to complain about work over drinks

Using Discord w/a lot of close friends + old work colleagues. Add a bunch of channels for topics. Join a local Dungeons & Dragons group, ours meets once a week. Also have been going to the mall quite a bit recently, just walking around and being around people is nice. Buy concert tickets in advance is also a good way to get a group committed.

If you have the time, join some amateur sport or hobby center. And then put in the energy.

Isn't working from a co-working space an option ?

I don't