This is just a more dramatic illustration; I'd never forget that extroversion is unimaginably weird

[cimorene]

There's nothing for bringing home how truly different it must be to be an extrovert like seeing what they say about lockdown.

I've reached and gone through the seasons of David Mitchell's radio show (Unbelievable Truth, BBC Radio 4) recorded during the '19-'20 lockdown, and it really struck me as surreal how big a deal specifically the staying home and not seeing people part evidently was for these people. Obviously lockdown was a big deal for everyone, but for us it was more because of the logistics and the, you know... global pandemic raging outside.

The idea of being bothered by not going out and not seeing people is quite funny to me. (I do eventually reach a state of social understimulation, or at least I have in the past, after like three months or so of hibernation perhaps, but it doesn't really feel like I'm bothered by loneliness, it's more like "I would quite like to see one of my friends.")

I mean, not only do deviations from the base state of never going out sap my and waxjism's energy and executive function, requiring a whole recovery period each time and sometimes multiple days to work up to the ordeal in advance, but in general it happens to us by accident not infrequently that we forget to go out and do anything or see anyone for an extended period without noticing. Like oh, I guess we haven't left the house or bought anything but groceries for a few months, eh? Oh yeah, heh. And that seems like an even bigger contrast to the picture painted by these professional entertainers. (Obviously I noticed this about lockdown at the time as well, but it's a bit more concentrated perhaps when you have a group of comedians joking about it together. And I suppose performers are more extroverted than the average.)

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

This makes perfect sense.

I was pretty extroverted before the pandemic, but since the height of the pandemic I have become more of a hermit than I ever dreamed I could be. It really changed me.

I do have a roommate, the Younger Prince, so if I lived completely alone I suppose I would want to be more sociable. He and I don't interact all that much but it's nice to have someone here. However, I do enjoy the weekdays when he is at work and I am here alone though. So I dunno.

But wow, I have cut back massively on all Leaving The House activities since 2020 for sure. Leaving the house does not give me exhaustion like it does you two, but I just don't feel like going anywhere or seeing people a lot of the time. I do like hosting bridge every couple of months and I do go out and have lunch with friends about three times per month. But that's it. (I'm not counting when I have to go help mom; that is in separate thing for me. Not really something fun at all any more but it does involve leaving the house and seeing people.)

I do wonder if as 2025 goes on and there is hopefully 100 percent less Family Drama and Death, I might recover some of my socializing tendencies. Will have to wait and see.

[cimorene]

Yeah, it is different for people who live alone, I'm sure. But now that you mention it our habits probably changed during the pandemic too, even though we were not especially social people before...

[torachan]

It's definitely a foreign concept for me, too. If I were alone under lockdown and had no way of being in contact with anyone, including through the internet, then I'd probably feel lonely, but the internet exists? Since the people complaining about being alone were doing so on the internet, obviously they know this, too, but for them I guess talking with someone online is not the same as talking face to face, which I just don't get.

But I also had a totally different early pandemic experience from the loudest people online as well, because they all assumed that everyone was office workers who were now working from home, and all had this shared experience, and like, a lot of people still had to work in person. I was one of them!

[cimorene]

Yeah, I started working again in a store that was considered essential for some reason (furniture, not food!) when most people in office work were still in lockdown and bad customers wearing masks wrong was the one overriding preoccupation for a while😬

Bake

[copracat]

I am so grateful that my workplace decided to continue work from home options for us. I don't think I can go in to an office five days a week ever again. I never want to have to undertake the grim time-wastage of commuting again. I used to need Saturday to recover from a week of people.

Re: Bake

[cimorene]

Yeah, Wax does much better now too, and she has real trouble on the days she has to go back.

[krait]

As an introvert, the pandemic lockdown helped me establish my introversion parameters with precision. Turns out that, while 5 days per week in the office is too much social contact, 1 day per week in the office is too little. I reached a point where I had to go somewhere and interact with someone because if I stared at my own walls any longer I was going to scream.

Now I dream of being able to work from home 2 days a week, which seems like it would be ideal: 3 days, hopefully not consecutive, in the office, and 2 days out, feels like it would strike the perfect balance. :D

[cimorene]

I think two days out of the house would probably be good for me, once I worked up to it and stopped being exhausted. Maybe one and a half. But the days couldn't be more than five hours. Four is probably ideal for me.

[cimorene]

Actually working from home in a way that didn't absorb all of my time and then having a separate regular set of stuff to do out there with other people would probably be the best for me.

[lobelia321]

I enjoyed reading this.

[cimorene]

😂

[phosfate]

"We have to stay home from now on."
"Yeah, and...?"

[cimorene]

Exactly!!