Help with balance between meditation practice and lay life The more I meditate the more weird I become. I feel stressed out while being with groups of people. I don't know what to say and I find the conversational topics deeply boring, meaningless and useless.
As a consequence of this I tend to isolate myself, communicate via social media and meditate many hours daily in my apartment. I don't really like to be around people when I meditate intensely.
I feel this life is more and more useless and sometimes I want to become a monastic and live in a jungle or forest. I can't do that right now because of paying off my student loan. If I didn't have that loan I would have gone forth by now.
It seems like I can't find a balance between the life of a meditator and as a lay person. Meditation pulls me inwards and makes me not want to be around people but the lay person in me still wants lay life type of things. I'm deeply ambivalent and conflicted about this. I feel like I'm being pulled in opposite directions and it feels like the meditation practice is ruining my life.
Is it possible to find a balance and still live in this world as a meditator or do I have to give up either the meditation practice or the lay life?
Is it possible to find a balance?
Yes. In fact, it is necessary to find balance.
The path is more than immersion. In fact, the practice is three-fold and comprises: wisdom, ethics, and immersion:

MN44:11.2: “The three practice categories are not included in the noble eightfold path. Rather, the noble eightfold path is included in the three practice categories.


”Right view and right thought: these things are included in the category of wisdom.


Right speech, right action, and right livelihood: these things are
included in the category of ethics.


Right effort, right mindfulness,
and right immersion: these things are included in the category of
immersion.

Although one may see the wisdom of the Noble Eightfold Path and practice immersion, one cannot omit ethics. Just like a three-legged stool missing a leg, so too would we topple over without the third practice, ethics. The middle part of the path is firmly rooted in ethics. And what are ethics? Ethics are what we practice when in the company of others.
MN8 has a good list of 44 ethical considerations that apply to all. Here are the first five:

MN8:12.2: ‘Others will be cruel, but here we will not be cruel.’


MN8:12.3: ‘Others will kill living creatures, but here we will not kill living creatures.’


MN8:12.4: ‘Others will steal, but here we will not steal.’


MN8:12.5: ‘Others will be unchaste, but here we will not be unchaste.’


MN8:12.6: ‘Others will lie, but here we will not lie.’

Being mindful of ethics when with others and will strengthen wisdom as well as immersion. Practice of ethics paves the way for the practice of immersion, which is later in the path. If any step on the path is difficult, look back at the steps that may have been skipped! All the steps on the Noble Eightfold Path matter. Right Immersion is the eight step. Seven steps precede and are quite important.