People who haven’t really resumed socializing at levels they used to, people who lost the capacity to regulate during interpersonal interactions, people who lost trust in others… I encounter lots of partial returners out there
Extraintroverts?
Petroverts?
Avari.
The unwilling elves who refused the great journey!
When talking about people with ASD that’s called unmasking and is one of the main goals of therapy.
Assuming ASD stands for antisocial disorder, I didn’t realize there was therapy for it. I thought it was essentially just “I don’t like those people, and I don’t like THOSE people either…actually, I don’t like most people. I’m just going to keep to myself.”
Now, maybe I’m wrong, and ASD stands for something else.
Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
We don’t have a natural ability to infer emotions from body language, for a start. We have to learn to actively pay attention to it. Replacing natural instinct that a neurotypical person has with an active thought process is tiring, for a start.
Add to that most ASD people have trouble with emotional control, need to actively think about their own facial expressions, and often have social quirks that are unacceptable like nail biting which must be actively repressed… and being around others for hours on end is exhausting.
On top of this, most ASD people also have ADHD, and in the modern open office environment between the social aspect and never ending barrage of distraction, and the workplace is hostile, actively hostile to folks with ASD.
This combination of factors leads to having no where to unmask and relax until they get home. When they do, they are so exhausted from being something they are not for 10 hours (commute has to be included as its all public space) that when they get home they just shut down. They don’t call family or friends usually, they don’t get things around the house done. They have to turn off and try to re-energize themselves for doing it all again tomorrow.
I know all this as I am ASD and ADHD
Being able to work from home has brought actual balance to our lives as we can unmask the moment the camera goes off, we have rooms at home where we can close the door and remove distractions (well except mandatory work chats, but its a matter of muting that for focus) and at the end of the day we still have energy for our actual lives. In other words, this is the true work-life balance that I had always heard of but never truly felt I had.
Lemmites
Ouch. Yeah
We do. It’s called being Smart.
During the pandemic I moved to the country, stopped using social media, and got a remote working job. I think the people who used to know me assume I’m dead.
In my particular case, it is called “working parent”
Pandainfuls
I’ve had bad anxiety my entire life, but I never felt like I really had social anxiety before the pandemic. Now I have a hard time talking to pretty much anyone unless they talk to me first.
…hi.
I’ll be honest, the lockdowns were awesome for me. “Now you bitches get to see how I live.”
And the mad increase of online ordering, no contact pickup, and how people aren’t crawling up your ass in line at the grocery store anymore? I could not have hoped for better.
The impostor syndrome and such are crazy though, when working remotely from my dust and cockroaches box.
Yeah it was certainly a net positive for some. Of course this post isn’t a criticism of those that enjoyed it, or were unaffected by it. But there is a sort of lost generation group, so to speak, too. That includes younger people who feel maladroit or disconnected in a way that they tie to that period. People who already struggled to socialize and the period made it worse enough that they never recovered
Yeah my youngest kid was on the middle of her second school year when the lockdown started. She was so anxious around people when in person school started again. She’s gotten somewhat better in the past couple years, but still not quite the same.
Yes some kids I know, it just sort of became how they identify: shy, more anxious
I go out but I do most of my big shopping as delivery. I just can’t bring myself to go to Walmart very often. Most of my little shopping is at dollar stores. You know, the little things we used to get at what we used to call “milk stores.”
Gods do I miss social distance lines
I miss having free time without the impending pressure to do things.
😌 It truly was the good old days when we just had a global pandemic to worry about.
I’m health wise OK but my wife isn’t for the rest of her life so I have to take precautions everywhere. I don’t mind because I really don’t like dealing with people anyway.
I do grocery pickup and go inside the store maybe four or five times a year now.
I haven’t been to the inside of a restaurant in over three years, we use patios and sidewalk tables outdoors.
I specifically only ever use gas stations where you pay at the pump.
I haven’t been to a mall or indoor space with people in years now.
I order everything else to my door.
I really don’t miss dealing with people and now find it completely weird and disorienting to deal with people in public now.
now find it completely weird and disorienting to deal with people in public now.
This is what I’ve been hearing (and experienced). And that it’s not a preference, it’s more that the nervous system has struggled to recalibrate; or there was not enough opportunity for it to do so and that has led to a feedback loop
How about: isolastionists?
Yeah. That’s me. Or anyone I know, really. Sure cities are back to pre-pandemic chaos, but those are other people.
I choose to work from the office on most days. I use public transit. I go to the gym. I’m not locked in, but …
- after-work drinks
- meetups
- catch up with a friend at the pub
- date night
- clubs
- partys
That’s a distant past. And i don’t miss it, really.
Ok, I do miss socializing, the good parts: Crack some jokes, have some small-talk, feel part oof a group of friends.
But i don’t miss it enough to endure that bad parts: Forcing oneselves into conversations with strangers, “networking”, drinking a beer alone in a corner of some event, going out to bar where over your overpriced drink you’ll accept that you’d rather be in your living room. Bars and night clubs are a weird concept (unless you are in your twenties and really enjoy the scene): You realistically only talk the person you came with, but they can’t hear what your are saying since it’s loud and crowded. There may be music, but unless you came to dance, you probably have a Spotify play list you’ll enjoy more. In better quality.
It’s all the doing of Nihon Hikikomori Kyokai…!
Maybe if we smushed the two together and made up a word? Like hikicovidomori
Maybe there is a German word for it. Or that could make one up
I think the term is hikikomori, and the cause is COVID isolation.
Where do you encounter these people that haven’t returned from isolation?
Online? Zoom meetings?
Not really isolating is on zoom. Just preferring to be where they cannot smell you. I presume.
You don’t. That’s the point.
