On Volunteering

Yesterday I was asked why I volunteer so much. My tongue in cheek answer was that I needed to do something to perk up my meaningless, depressing life. Stranely enough, that is a part of the answer. Although I've lived in Seattle almost 2 years, I still don't have a lot of friends - especially friends outside the gayboy world. If left to my own devices, I would sit in my apartment on my fat ass watching TV and getting fatter. Volunteering forces me out of the house. On a recent Sunday, it was the first weekend day in a month where I didn't have anything scheduled. What'd I do? Watched TV. Lets face it, I know myself pretty well and I'm lazy. :)
Despite my belly-aching about everything, my life is pretty good. Yeah, it would be nice to meet Mr. Right (or even Mr. Right-Now), or to earn more money (who would turn down more money, really??). In the grand scheme of things, though, I can't complain. I can put food on my table (most of the time), have a roof over my head, etc. To that end, I feel like I should do good things for my community. I can't afford to donate money to charities anymore, so I donate time. Because of my job, I have PLENTY of free time. I like to use it for causes I support.
Finally, I get to meet a lot of different people when I volunteer who have at least some of the same interests I do. Maybe sometime I'll meet Mr. Right at one of these things. Or a Mr. Right Now... or just a couple cool people to hang out with. So things didn't work out with the last Mr. Right Now I met volunteering, this doesn't mean it won't in the future and now, thanks to him, I know that I can walk up to a guy (ok cowardly email a guy) and ask him out and I won't die. (ok I might now that I'm old... )

So there you have it... a long and probably boring treatise on why I volunteer. Any questions? :)