mukund shyam

I identify as an introvert. When the lock-down was initially announced in May last year, I didn't think it would affect me at all. After all, I didn't really do well in social situations, and being alone helps me recharge.

Oh man, how wrong I was.

As the lock-down went further and further on; and the fact that I could only meet with people over Google Meet or Zoom really started to get to me. I started to realize how reliant us humans are on social interaction, and it hit hard.

Of course, having some way to connect with people is better than having no way to connect at all, but the fact is its not easy to schedule a call; at least not compared to just going over to a person and talking to them. This made calls really rare among us friends, and we never really talked except over like Discord.

It was not fun.

Once I began to get used to the lack of social interaction, I knew that my mental health had definitely become affected.

I've noticed that getting used to stress or social anxiety or whatever was a surefire indication that it was affecting me; that my brain had decided to try and get used to it rather than trying to find a way to combat it (the healthier option).

I threw myself into work to try and combat this, and it became pretty easy to manage throughout the year.

Nowadays, no one talks very often on our Discord server or our Hangouts group.

Its not fun at all.

Calls have become all the more rare, and even when there are calls, it is almost never to catch up on stuff. Not fun.

I recently talked to a friend of mine, and I've noticed something: it was hard for both of us to start talking. In a little while, we did end up getting back to talking like normal.

But I noticed that my conversational and social skills have really been hit by the pandemic.

Making this blog has indeed helped in that, but its not something I've ever expected to happen to me.

I am a bit more scared to what will happen to me when the world inevitably opens back up. Will I still be able to talk to people in person?

I haven't met many of my friends in forever. I'm sure many many people haven't too. But I have hope that everyone will get vaccinated and this virus won't be as strong as it was before.

I'm pretty certain once the world opens up, its going to be alien to all of us. Hopefully, eventually, we all can learn to speak and carry conversations and socialize.

Because we're social animals and we need it.

Thanks for reading.