The first time I went to Heimbar, it was by the invitation of a friend. The next week, she asked again and I was feeling sick. This week, I asked her and she couldn’t come because of a problem. I didn’t know whether I should go there alone and meet new people or to just ignore it and go home. A part of me wanted learn to enjoy even if I’m alone, while another part wanted to avoid the new environment and just go home to ask ChatGPT for a movie about an alone student in a foreign country and watch it. :))
It was 18:00 at that moment and the party (?!) was supposed to start at around 21:00. I resisted against going home and stayed until 21:00. Then, I went there but the only person in there was the barista. The previous time, I had seen it so crowded. Again, the second part of me woke up and tempted me to go home. I almost gave up and said “OK man… whatever you say”. But my bike was somewhere else. So, I walked to there and smoked a few cigarettes. On my way back home, I was just passing from near that party and thought “Maybe people have gone there and now the situation is better. Let’s give it another chance”. So, I went there and again there were a few people and no one was playing kicker, my only tool of socialization in there. :)) I just filled my water bottle to go home, but saw some acquaintances entering the bar and starting to play kicker. So, I just joined them and played kicker for a while.
All of them were German. They don’t talk English by default and it’s hard for me to participate in their chats. So, after the kicker I almost couldn’t do anything more along with them. But right at the moment I decided to go home, some other people arrived that were going to play kicker. So again, I joined them and played more. This process repeated multiple times: I decided to go home, waited for some minutes, new people arrived, played with them. :))
It continued until 01:00. But I got to know a bunch of new people just by not giving up and waiting more. That’s quite good. Now I’m happy. I think if I had given up at the first time, I was going to regret for ever. Maybe, lose my precious confidence even more than before. Sitting at the corner of my room with a foggy depressed mind. But now everything’s good.
However, I think I could perform better, but let’s just not be too strict and say that I already spent all of my energy just to overcome my fear of new environment and new people. In the next weeks, I’ll try to do better.
By the way, after this event, there’s no bus to take me home. That’s why I have to return with my bike from the university. It takes about 20 minutes to reach my home. I really love the path; It’s start with a road full of trees with a cold weather. After ~10 minutes of riding, you’ll reach the city and enjoy the city’s peace and silence for another ~10 minutes. That’s really cool.
Side note: This party enormously motivates me toward studying German language. Right after the previous time I went there, my average XP/day in Duolingo had a big jump.