15 Things Only People Who Are Friends With A Homebody Understand

1. Calling us “losers” when we refuse to join you for last minute cocktails at 11 PM on a weeknight doesn’t incentivize us to reconsider. Just because we choose our home to spend time in over strangers and getting presentable enough to schmooze doesn’t mean we’re bad people or are lacking in entertainment.

2. We can’t think of a better night’s plan than binge watching a TV series, ordering in pizza and wearing something extremely comfortable that would be considered unacceptable at any social function. You’ll earn major points with us if you suggest coming over to watch a movie and ordering in instead of insisting we stay out until 4 AM, have lost our voices and have spent an insane amount of money.

3. We spent quality time and thoughtfulness in picking out our recliner, couch and electronic devices that fill our homes. We’ve set up surround sound, have ensured our wireless signal is at its maximum boost and we’ve spent hours researching, testing out and pulling the trigger on a kick ass television. You may think we are throwing away money, but these items are our entertainment on most nights and prevent us from spending even more money on trendy clothing, expensive restaurants and transportation getting to and from outrageously pricey venues.

4. Some friends call us lazy. We know we’re just more creative at entertaining ourselves at home. Our living room can be a video game center, movie theater, ping pong recreation center, gourmet restaurant and t-ball field all at once.

5. Winter and bad weather only increase our homebody-ness and are our enemy when it comes to venturing out. If it’s a choice between leaving our warm, inviting home to enter the freezing cold temperatures or a rain storm, there is a 75% chance we’ll bail. It’s nothing personal. We start to welcome the colder weather come fall as it gives us an even greater excuse to stay in and snuggle up.

6. The older we get, the more we value at-home dinners, hosting small get-togethers and a place to do them where you don’t have to scream to hear each other.

7. We know ourselves enough to understand that while committing to a concert months in advance will always seem like a much better idea at the time than it will the hour before we’re supposed to get ready to leave for the concert.

8. When we do make it out, we may seem a little rusty on our social skills due to lack of practice. You may also think that we’re not interested in what you’re saying. The truth is, we are anxious to get back home where we’re not being knocked into in a crowded bar, where our comfy couch and a blanket await us and where we don’t have to think of clever things to say to semi-strangers.

9. Nothing makes us more excited than a weekend filled with no plans. To some, this would represent a social calamity – and perhaps induce anxiety that results in loneliness. A homebody knows better than to fear a plan-less couple of days. She or he will soak up the quiet with happiness.

10. If you do manage to get us out of our home, we like structured and early evenings. So “yes” to the movies, dinners in small group sand low-key activities like bowling, mini golf and a daytime exercise walk. If you’re trying to get us to a late-starting charity event, open ended night out at a bar, club or destination that’s longer than 30 minutes away and requires making small talk with people we barely know, you can pretty much count us out or expect us to disappear half way through the night.

11. Please know us better than to assume that New Year’s Eve will be spent anywhere but our homes and don’t try to talk us out of it. We love the safety of knowing that dinner won’t be 3x the price, nor will there be an entry fee of over $100 just to exist on New Year’s Eve. We’ll consider having people over instead, but then we’ll come to realize that we prefer it being quiet and not having to host.

12. Staying in doesn’t always mean sitting on our couch, channel surfing endlessly. Sometimes it’s about getting stuff done that we can’t accomplish during the week. Like laundry. Cooking a meal. Cleaning out our closets. Catching up on bills and other neglected responsibilities. Not to mention the pleasures of online shopping that can now be done without fighting crowds and waiting in line endlessly. Yes, social media has semi-replaced our actual social life to some extent, but the people that we want to see, we’ll make the effort for.

13. We celebrate the creation of online services such as Seamless that have supported our homebody ways. We can now order any type of cuisine in the world to our home within an hour. Thank you, to companies like Insomnia Cookies, who understand the delight of having warm freshly baked cookies delivered to our door into the wee hours of the night. Yes, I’ve greeted the delivery person in my pajamas.

14. Traveling seems like a wonderful idea in concept. We often get overwhelmed by the planning, packing and “getting there and back” phase of a trip. We’ll complain constantly and reconsider ever leaving our front door again for anything that takes us away from sleeping in our own bed.

15. Our friends get frustrated with us when attempting to make plans because we hold tightly to our familiar, comfortable surroundings and often reject or make setting a date difficult. We’ll be called selfish, boring, dull and other names, but in reality, we’re happy to spend time with ourselves and the people and things we live with.