Feral

We are nearly a full year into the COVID crisis. Road trips were cancelled. Concert tickets refunded. I haven't had a drink or a bite to eat with a friend. I know that many people in the States have ignored recommendation and lived as if the pandemic doesn't mean anything to them, but my guess is that's why the US is currently at 485,000 COVID deaths.

About a month ago, I wrote about how sick I had been during a large part of the 2020 portion of the pandemic. That meant that I hadn't kept up a number of relationships that now lie in ashes. I hardly talked with anyone. I didn't have the energy.

That takes it own kind of toll on humans, or at least me. The less time I spend with people, the more isolated I am, the more nervous I feel around others. I now experience a great deal of anxiety at the grocery store. I like grocery shopping and always have, especially if the store is fairly empty. I'm not so good in a pre-holiday grocery store. Now, I go once a week, early on Sunday morning. It's pretty empty. Whenever another costumer approaches me, I feel myself tense up and ready to flee from their presence. It's the same feeling I get waiting in line to pay. My mind is racing with silents pleas for people to keep their distance from my space.

The last time I felt like this was when I was out of work for a year. I never left the house because I didn't have any money to go any where. I was a social wreck. I'm sure I botched interviews because I had forgotten how to talk with people.

At some point this spring, I will return to my classroom once a week, to work with very small groups of students. I will have to interact with coworkers, with whom I had only worked five months before we all went home. I have no idea how to talk with them. "So, how was your quarantine?" feels pretty weak to me. Or, my loneliness will explode and I won't shut up, blathering on about nothing. I'll be fully vaccinated, but I'm worried about navigating simple human interactions.

Can I hug my vaccinated coworkers and how creepy is it that I want, no need those hugs? Or eventually when I find myself in a bar and maybe a stranger flirts with me? Okay, I'm over 50 and that won't happen, but maybe it will. How do we work out the awkwardness in a way that is healthy and keeps the inner critic at bay?

Clearly, I'll meditate. I'm still so distracted and at loose ends, that I get almost nothing accomplished. I still shy away from humans and normal interaction. I'm trying not to worry to much. Perhaps being in my classroom will be a good distraction.

I'll sort it out. Or I won't. I'll be back in the world at some point, my feral nature sorted or not.

Not an Introvert and this Surprises Me

At the start of the pandemic and the accompanying shelter-at-home phase, people of the Internet divided themselves into two camps: introverts and extroverts. Introverts declared that they had been training for this crisis their entire lives. Extroverts, on the other hand, declared that they were not okay. For all of my life, I had cast myself firmly, but quietly, into Camp Introvert. Eleven months in, I'm not so sure.

As a child, I was terribly shy. Even now, in certain situations, I still am. I do not feel comfortable walking into a gathering with a lot of people and then I'm supposed to sort out where to go. I hate, HATE parties where spontaneous joy is expected to materialize out of thin air. That includes birthday, Super Bowl, and New Year's Eve parties.

I also need a few days after social events to recharge my batteries. I need silence and slow in those periods so I can get my bearings again. If I have to go to a wedding, please do not contact me until a few days after the event. I just don't have the energy.

Oddly, I teach for a living. That requires me to be on and social for six to seven hours a day, five days a week. Yes, it tires me out. It also rejuvenates me at the same time. Like sexuality, I don't necessarily think that all people are either introverts or extroverts. I think that there's a range in there and I fall in that range.

For example, I am a hopeless flirt. I love flirting and shamelessly find myself flirting with strangers at bars, grocery stores, concerts, anywhere. I don't even need liquid courage. Eleven months into this crisis, I deeply miss flirting.

I like going on road trips and talking with strangers in strange places. 

I miss idly chatting with the cashier or bartender or cab driver or anyone else out in public. I love starting random conversations. I have to gather a little energy to do it, but I'm not really put off by the idea of talking with strangers. Truth be told, I often find it very rewarding. I don't think that someone who is 100 percent an introvert likes striking up random conversations.

I fall somewhere in the grey zone, where the color of company is welcome. Don't invite me to a party, but do invite me out to wander the city and we'll have a blast.