Saturday 21st August 2021
Some of my friends have been to restaurants since the pandemic started. Some have been to pubs, even though they were quiet. But I have not been anywhere with crowds other than the local supermarket.
So to say that social interacting with people has been weird is an understatement.
Pre-pandemic I’d display introvert tendencies. I’d be actively engaged in conversation until I ran out of steam and then I’d take myself off somewhere to recharge.
Yet with this weekend, I’ve been on a rollercoaster. I’ll interact for so long and then I’ll just go quiet. I’m aware that I’ve not spoken to more than a couple of the same old people for 18 months and am probably a right old bore. Hence, when the group ebbs and wanes, I catch myself worrying that I’ve annoyed everyone and retreat.
Before the pandemic I went through a weird phase where I would not stay after tournaments. That’s not like me, and I do wonder where that social anxiety came from. I think it must have been some micro concussion as it happened in the midst of tournament season. But I found I became very reclusive.
Approaching this weekend, I found myself thinking I should just come up for the day of my workshop or go home early (Saturday night’s hotel bill is more than half the combined stay) but I forced myself to go so I could reconnect to people. Yet I’m fighting that same anxiety and instead of being happy to be quiet if conversations end and people wander off, I worry that I’ve done something wrong. I’ve really consciously had to fight that today, and it tires me out, during which time I will withdraw myself but only so I can recharge and reengage.
I’ve always found I can easily talk to people. My anxiety comes after I’ve been talking to them a while. Yet, this weekend has taken considerable effort, and I find myself fighting impulses to run away. Some of that is pandemic, some of that is combating old habits.
We’ve all be following each other’s Facebook statuses and from the outside it’s seemed that everyone has coped with the pandemic pretty well. Yet tonight, I got to hear snippets of just how fucked up people have been over the last 18 months – people who I’ve felt have really had their shit together while we’ve been in various lockdowns.
It makes me feel a bit better about the difficulties I’m having socialising. I’m not really a socially awkward person, but I do feel it, and not getting trapped in my own head has taken a lot of effort today. Just because conversations finish and people go off elsewhere does not mean everyone thinks you are a bore. They are all fighting their own battles… which as cliché as it sounds has proved surprisingly true.
I had one friend tell me that the social interaction caused them to burst into tears and they needed to take themselves away to compose themselves. Thankfully, having a virologist there when I had my first interaction helped a lot but I learned today that we’ve probably all been a bit more fucked up by the isolation than we realise. And as more stories come to light of people’s lockdowns and the shit that happened, it makes me realise that it’s going to take a while for social interaction to feel effortless again.
This weekend goes a LONG way towards it. The environment feels like normality, the problem is that we don’t feel normal and that’s going to take a bit of time to adjust back. And, on top of this… those that seem to have their shit together are probably harbouring some of the worst issues.
Be kind and remember to ask how people are… that’s the lesson today
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