Big goals come with some empty Friday nights. That’s not you being weird. That’s the price tag.

Anything that takes serious time takes it from somewhere, and the place it usually comes from is unstructured social time. Missing things is not a character flaw or evidence that something is wrong with you socially. It is the cost of a choice, and it is better to know you are paying it than to meet it later as loneliness.

Be deliberate about which nights you spend and which you protect. One evening a week kept for people stops the isolation compounding. And stay honest about whether the goal is still worth the price, since that answer may change.