I disconnect to some degree. You can probably track my days off as to when I am active on this site, because I tend to not post for a couple day stretches at a time.
As to what I actually do in said downtime, I play board games with my partner and I do a lot of cooking. Weekdays get the simple quick recipes, but I do more elaborate things on my days off. I do a lot of Italian and Chinese food, some Japanese or French. I have a few other hobbies too: I vape and make all my own liquids which can be fun to experiment with, I have recently started getting into TTRPGs though lack many people to play with.
More generally speaking, I have gotten very good at learning who is worth engaging with. I can pretty quickly identify "misguided liberal who has a potential socialist future" from "diehard lifelong lib". The latter I don't bother engaging with anymore, but the former I am happy to have discussions with. It's a better use of my time and less taxing on mental health in the longterm.
I disconnect to some degree. You can probably track my days off as to when I am active on this site, because I tend to not post for a couple day stretches at a time.
As to what I actually do in said downtime, I play board games with my partner and I do a lot of cooking. Weekdays get the simple quick recipes, but I do more elaborate things on my days off. I do a lot of Italian and Chinese food, some Japanese or French. I have a few other hobbies too: I vape and make all my own liquids which can be fun to experiment with, I have recently started getting into TTRPGs though lack many people to play with.
More generally speaking, I have gotten very good at learning who is worth engaging with. I can pretty quickly identify "misguided liberal who has a potential socialist future" from "diehard lifelong lib". The latter I don't bother engaging with anymore, but the former I am happy to have discussions with. It's a better use of my time and less taxing on mental health in the longterm.