Unfortunately there’s a difference between “having fun” and “spending your free time”, a good example of which is doomscrolling.

Pedantry aside, I’m in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), which is one of the largest medieval reenactment society. Most of the time that I’m out of the house, I’m usually going to fight practice or an event (which can be anywhere from 1 day to 2 weeks long).

I mainly do armored fighting, so I have a suit of armor that weighs 40-50lbs. And it’s real armor because we use rattan swords that are 2-3lbs and blows don’t count unless you actually hit each other with force. Even with armor, injuries do happen on occasion, including broken bones. I seem to be particularly accident prone though, so ymmv.

But there’s a lot more to do in the SCA. There’s archery, fencing, horse riding, dancing, bardic circles, brewing, arts & science competitions, classes, and just hanging out with friends.

I even make some things for it at home. I recently made a black & yellow gugel hood with embroidery to wear while marshalling (a referee) for armored fighting, and I’m currently making a blanket stitch by hand on the dags of a different hood to prevent it from fraying more. I’ve also made several parts (but not all) of my armor. There’s also a couple of crossbow kits I assembled a few months back that I still need to tweak before they can be used.

That being said, I have to drive long distances to get to fight practices due to living in the middle of nowhere. Between gas prices and lack of time + energy on workday evenings it’s gotten hard to attend so I mainly get to fight at weekend events.

Outside of the SCA, I’m also working to degoogle and need to take a second try at getting a media server up and running soon. I built one a couple years back but wasn’t able to get things set up before more important tasks popped up. Though that’s not really “fun” in a traditional sense. More like “fulfilling”