u/ATypicalScholar

I work a bit of an odd job where I have to constantly have an assortment of various forms for any situation while also having to keep my planner with me to write appointments, meetings, and specific dates just so I don't have any scheduling conflicts. I bounce between working in an office to then going out in the community. Really I just use the month view of my planner to write things in rather than the week or day to day view. But my planners keep falling apart on me with how much I bounce between office to car to meetings to community setting and then back to office.

I'm trying to find something durable and thin that isn't a padfolio because I'm trying to keep things as minimal as possible to not look like I'm bringing a binder with me because it can trigger trauma responses in the demographics I work with.

If anyone knows of something that could work out better for me, I would greatly appreciate the assistance

I (M,28) work a job that requires at minimum 50 hour work weeks. I get home, I'm tired and my social battery is destroyed and the very next day I have to wake up and go right back at it.

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That leaves me with basically the only option being dating apps which over the last 7 years have proven to be ineffective for me. I've tried countless retakes of photos, readjustments of profile bio's, letting friends manage my profiles, and it's resulted in absolutely no progress. The primary reason is because I'm sober, and any individual that is appearing to engage in substance use or other addictive traits I avoid like the plague. I don't want to expose myself to people that are not going to be supportive of my sobriety. The other thing that makes dating apps problematic is I'm a mandated reporter... so any red flags in relation to that I also avoid. That leaves me with very few individuals to swipe on after that. So after about 2 days worth of being on app and inconsistently swiping I'm usually out of people. So app seem to be useless.

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I would say there are speed dating events or other types of hobby events or just general social gatherings and around my area but there are not. The best I have is Bible study groups and I have no interest in going to those. There's no cooking classes or dance classes or sports clubs or anything like that. Even if there were I'd be too exhausted to try doing anything with that.

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Then there's friends and coworkers and that's ineffective too. My friends are all around 8 to 10 years older than me and they already have kids so they don't know anyone that would be a fit for me. My coworkers don't know anyone either.

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So I'm just kind of stuck, I don't have the time to allocate a lot of effort because of the job I have. I love my job and I wouldn't try to find any other avenues of employment, but it has left me in a situation where I am basically stuck.

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Where do I go from here?