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Comment by janetacarr | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of what newly self-employed people miss about office life can be replaced by being a regular at a co-working space tbh. I understand it's hard to make friends in adulthood, but, if you can close a sales deal / consulting gig, you can make friends pretty easily. Business relationships and personal relationships are both still relationships.

As someone who has been self-employed for nearly 2 years, I cannot relate to any of this. I love knowing and having control over all the administrative, HR, recruiting, legal, finance, or taxes tasks. I love knowing I can take time off. If I need money, I can simply make more money. Nobody owns my IP or time.

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I have spent half of my career "self-employed" and 10-11 years of that working from home.

"Nobody owns my IP or time."

That's what is is. I just define it differently, my thing is when I am being controlled by someone or something (corporation), I am not free.

At the executive level, it was even as bad as shareholders pressuring me to dress certain ways (more expensive clothes, watches) or drive certain vehicles (more expensive, newer).

That's an amazing perspective from 2 years in. A few weeks before writing this article, I tried joining a co-working space. I was there to work around people. I went and chatted with people. I went to their weekly breakfast social event. But I realized a lot of the people were in 2 or larger size companies there, so they came with their group, had lunch together, had "happy hour" time together, and went back. I also realized that although I'm there once a week to chit chat, others are there any day to work with their colleagues. How was your experience in going to co-working space when self-employed over the last 2 years?

Some spaces have rules about who can join. Try out some for freelancers.

Funny enough, I rarely go to a coworking space. I do not miss the confines of an office, or having relationships with colleagues. That’s probably because my bf is an hobby dev and some neighbourhood friends are devs too.

I have been to coworking enough to know what you’re talking about with company groups just doing their thing though. Gotta seek out the solopreneurs. If you have an indie hackers/beers meetup in your city, maybe befriend some folks there and cowork somewhere together. I know some of my indie friends have had coworking meetups together before.

makes sense to find the right coworking space(s) or group up with indie hackers. I recently found an indie hackers group and there was at least one person there who also missed in-person time. So maybe thats a possibility! I found one very entrepreneurial coworking space but since I'm running a (product) consultancy and not building a product, they did not take me in.

At one point, my indie friends even threw themselves a holiday party! The sky is the limit (until you become a billionaire and fly to space ;).

I hope it works out for you.

This I go to a coworking space and enjoy getting to know and spend time with people outside the industry.

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