Nopy's Blog

Most of you otaku out there probably know what a hikikomori is, but if you don’t you can read up on them at Wikipedia. So since I don’t really know anyone in this city (besides people from work) and my landlord leaves me alone most of the time, I thought I’d try living like a hikikomori for a weekend to see what it was like. Don’t ask me why I decided to try being a hikikomori, I don’t really know myself. Maybe it was because of curiosity or boredom, or maybe a bit of both.

Anyways, a major part of being a hikikomori is not stepping out of your “lair”, be it your room or apartment or in my case, a basement. So after getting home on Friday night I put my shoes away and told myself not to go out until Monday (something I regret now because it looks like that was the last weekend this year with temperatures above freezing). The next step would be the irregular sleep schedule. I could only think of one way to change my sleeping habits on such short notice and that was to stay up as long as I could on Friday night. It was sometime around 4am when I fell asleep and I have no clue when I woke up. Considering the fact that I live in a basement with the windows covered, once my sleep schedule was thrown off, it didn’t matter to me whether it was night or day and so I just took naps whenever I was tired. Thinking back on it, I can’t even make a distinction between Saturday and Sunday since I had no clue when one day ended and the other started.

Since hikikomori don’t go out, I’d imagine they have a large store of frozen and instant foods, so that was what I ate during my weekend. I didn’t feel too bad about my diet afterwards, but I can only imagine how unhealthy someone would be after a long period of only eating that stuff. Then again, there are hikikomori out there that still live with their parents so they get healthy home-cooked meals every day, even if it’s just slid through the door.

So you’re probably wondering what I did over my weekend as a hiki. According to wikipedia, some activities of hiki’s are “watching TV, drawing, playing computer games, surfing the Internet, reading, listening to music, and other non-social activities.” I decided to go with games, surfing the internet, and listening to music for my non-social activities. These three activities can all be done from my bed so for the whole weekend (minus going to the washroom and getting food) I was actually in bed. At first it was great because I could stay wrapped in my warm blanket while on my laptop or eating and if I got tired I just rolled over and went to sleep. By the end of the weekend though I just felt really dirty, probably due to having so many crumbs in bed and not showering or changing clothes for the weekend.

After living a weekend like a hiki, all I can say is that you’ve gotta be nuts if you actually want to live like this and isolate yourself from the world. The lack of human contact was already starting to have an affect on me even though it was only for a weekend; I was finding myself keeping the spider in my washroom company. The hiki lifestyle is also very different. Taking naps at random times, eating packaged foods, and just surfing the web made me feel like I was rotting away in my room since I really wasn’t doing anything. It really makes you want to go outside and take a walk or go to the mall just so it feels like you’re actually doing something. I should also mention that since I didn’t say a word for a whole weekend, the first sentence or two that came out of my mouth on Monday morning were less comprehensible than I would have liked. I guess that’s why some hiki’s have a hard time speaking to people.

Now when I see people online bragging about how long they were able to live as a hiki, I just ask why? Is rotting away at home for a certain number of months or years really something to be proud of? It’s like saying you’re better than someone because you spent more time than them in solitary confinement. I guess I’ll never understand people that voluntarily live as hikikomori. The ones that are mentally ill though or feel they have no other choice really need help, and I hope they get it.

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