My friends and I joke about moving back to our home town to be together, possibly on the same block, mostly because of how cheap it would be. Truth is I have a lot of childhood and frankly recent trauma there and would never want to move back. Thankfully over time we’ve all seemed to be coincidentally landing in the same metro area over the years so we see each other a lot and it’s been a great way to bounce back from COVID.
Like... an involuntary book club? As in one person opened up that they read something like The Scarlet Letter? I'm sorry that you experienced that.
At an old job I read a fiction series based on a suggestion from my manager but that's because we liked the same type of books, absolutely was not expected to be read to join the "in" crowd. If anything, we were the "out" crowd!
I am not an accountant nor a lawyer but my hunch is that to engage with US companies from abroad you would either need to be transferred or apply for a job at an entity in the EU representing that employer or you would need to operate as a 1099 contractor (self employment).
1099 in EU may not be so bad, you would most likely still need to pay for access to national healthcare but it would be cheaper than US insurance. You will need to report your taxes with both the US and your country of residence, but there is a foreign income exclusion available that would make it so you didn't actually pay any taxes to the US besides what your employer owes. Again, not an expert, you might look into this further with your own research or consult a CPA that has experience working with Digital Nomads or citizen contractors working abroad.
