Fully vaccinated people can resume normal activities says the CDC, Cuomo, Newsom, and my pent-up teenage daughter with a glee I haven’t seen since her third birthday. But after a year of zooming, streaming, masking, and disinfecting, what is a normal activity? Normal feels different now. I feel different now.
Dreading returning to life at a breakneck social pace?
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It’s not just the newly reimposed social expectations of say, wearing a bra that I dread. It’s returning to life’s previous pace that I’m not geared up for. The rushing, the juggling, the schmoozing, the schlepping, the chitty-chat. I’m a recovering extrovert who overcame chronic FOMO and discovered the joys of quiet, solitude, and crafts – once they were foisted on me. I like it here in the slow lane, and I’m not the only one.
“I cannot imagine going back to five social events a week,” says Carla Zanoni, a Manhattan-based writer and digital strategist, “or going to an event, staying for 25 minutes and then moving on to the next one and the next.” Zanoni says she’s always enjoyed meeting new people but isn’t good at small talk and wants to relieve herself of that pressure going forward.
“We have all been de-socialized,” says renowned relationship expert, author, and host of the podcast How’s Work?, Esther Perel. “There’s been a pruning of the circle to its essence.”
Perel calls what Zanoni, myself and others are collectively experiencing “social atrophy,” which has created an impetus and inspiration to redesign our lives. “The pandemic has given us a sense of mortality,” she says. “Life is short, and when life is short you rearrange your priorities, and you think about what am I waiting for, and what if I wait too long, and what am I not waiting for anymore.”
“We’ve all been de-socialized,” says iconic relationship expert Esther Perel
Ernesto Urdaneta
According to Perel, the pandemic reorganized the fundamental structure of our social dynamics. Most Americans have always had an excess of acquaintances and not enough friends. But as circles have tightened, friendships have deepened. Meanwhile, circumstantial relationships – which are the products of a shared reality, like fellow parents in the homeroom or the barista who remembers how to spell your name – have sharply diminished. We’ve lost touch with our acquaintances and re-engaging with these outer circles is a kind of social anxiety most of us haven’t encountered before. “I’m now living very consciously,” says Zanoni, “when my schedule is packed, then I can’t be conscious.”
For those of us resisting re-entry, Perel offers four thoughtful approaches to help make reengaging with the world at large a little smoother.
1. Acknowledge how your personal needs have changed.
“Many who are experiencing this transition are surprised by how they feel, ” says Perel. “A lot of people are experiencing this kind of dread at this moment, and you’re not alone.”
Perel says we all must stake stock: “What do you want to go back to? What have you missed? What have you appreciated that you want to hold on to? What do you hope you will not change, because you like what happened to you? What things do you want to do differently as you go back out again?”
For Zanoni, the privilege of living in New York City once meant she should take advantage of every experience available and accept every invitation. Now, she’s developing a practice that prioritizes time with herself, her husband, and her closest friends. “I’ve never been more in touch with what I need, what brings me joy, and the actions I need to take to be fulfilled,” she says. When it comes to her social circles, she has taken stock, and has a plan. “I have to either shift a relationship into the direction of something deeper, which brings me joy and if I can’t then I can’t invest in it.”
2. Normalize our shared sense of loss.
“We’ve never had this kind of reality before,” says Perel, “people have never had to deal for a year and a half with such a massive amount of prolonged uncertainty.” The pandemic was a tragedy shared by many, but even those who thrived lost a sense of normalcy in a world they once knew. And every one of us lost a sense of spontaneity, happenstance, and serendipity.
“We’ve just come out of collective trauma, “ says Perel. “People have gone through an amazing, difficult, transformative experience –nobody has escaped, and to pretend that this hasn’t happened, is going to just simply create more mental health issues.” She counsels that to process it, we have to talk about it. “It’s not all dramatic stories, how many disinfectants I bought, how many times I used to wash my hands.” She adds with a grin, “You can joke about it.”
3. Validate the unique experience of others.
While there are legions eager to leave the kitchen table and hurry back to their desk at the office, there’s a quiet majority who have embraced the silver linings: curbside pickup, outdoor dining, Teladoc, grey hair, and cozy pants that transition effortlessly from work to evening.
Like Kimmy Schmidt emerging from her underground bunker, we have no idea who or what we’re going to encounter in a world that has been socially re-calibrated. Perel encourages us to avoid the rush to judge and instead validate others when they exercise newfound boundaries and expectations.
“Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve made a bunch of decisions about who am I, what I enjoy, am I going to do this or not, and does it align with me,” says Zanoni. “I’ve learned that ‘no’ is a complete sentence.”
4. When in doubt, express curiosity.
One of the drivers of social anxiety is not knowing what to say. What do you say to an acquaintance you haven’t seen in 18 months? “Actually, there’s a lot more to talk about now,” says Perel, “because there is a shared reality that everybody has experienced in their own way.” When in doubt, says Perel, simply express curiosity: “You don’t have to come up with anything major – just say, ‘Tell me more. What happened to you? Where were you? What were your circumstances? How has is it been for you to not come to work, how’s it been for you to come back? Is everybody okay in your family?’” And please, she says, do not to go silent when someone says they lost a loved one, or their job, or had to move, all of which, she predicts, is far more common than we imagine.
The pandemic was a universal experience, and we are all transitioning. Perel sees a unifying force in our collective resilience. “Unity involves naming, framing, being curious about it, telling stories, laughing, and crying,” she says. “Within two months, you will see,” she says, “re-entry is not a static thing, it’s a long process.”
Of course we’re all excited to return to our lives and be active, joyous, and social again. Just not too much, too soon, please.
