This is super common at that age and I totally feel you with the university friends thing. I lost touch with many of my uni friends and only have a more shallow friendship with other friends I made after that (maybe I'm a shitty friend?) - I've thankfully made a few more friends at my last couple of jobs and through some hobbies but not super close ones, however I then had a kid and have lost touch with a whole bunch of them over the past couple of years :')
Anyway, there's a stereotypical lifestyle that we've associated with being a professional coder, especially in your early-mid 20s. We've all heard it: "eat, sleep, code, repeat". At some point IMO this should be considered harmful. First, it enforces a narrow, diminished lifestyle without additional hobbies or interests. Second, it reifies coding as an end rather than a means - yes sometimes we want to build something pretty for its own sake, but a lot of the demotivation I've personally experienced has been from building stuff I don't give a flying fuck about. Insurance systems, legal bookkeeping systems, even a fucking recruiting portal for my country's military... I actually feel guilty about getting pulled into that one.
Anyway, there's a stereotypical lifestyle that we've associated with being a professional coder, especially in your early-mid 20s. We've all heard it: "eat, sleep, code, repeat". At some point IMO this should be considered harmful. First, it enforces a narrow, diminished lifestyle without additional hobbies or interests. Second, it reifies coding as an end rather than a means - yes sometimes we want to build something pretty for its own sake, but a lot of the demotivation I've personally experienced has been from building stuff I don't give a flying fuck about. Insurance systems, legal bookkeeping systems, even a fucking recruiting portal for my country's military... I actually feel guilty about getting pulled into that one.