Opening the Blinds

I don’t think I have ever defined myself as an extrovert. There have been times in my life where I have done extroverted things, like the multiple times I went to schools where I didn’t know basically anyone but forced myself to talk to people so I could make friends. There have been parts of my life where socializing has come easily and smoothly. Lately, there have been lots of times where interacting with other people—especially people I don’t know (or don’t know very well)—feels exhausting. Sometimes, I just want to do my own thing. I’ve written before about my distaste for small talk, which stems from both personal insecurities and the reality that small talk is genuinely not energizing to me, though I do recognize it as a necessary building block to cultivate relationships with new people.

The hard part is that I really like people. I love getting to know new people and being able to hear their stories and perspectives and jokes and learn about everything that has made them who they are. The best memories in my life all include other people, and that’s not by accident. I am convinced that our level of satisfaction in life is influenced most heavily by the quality of our relationships with others. The worst non-physical pain a person can experience is loneliness, the kind that makes you feel small and terrified and vulnerable in all the most agonizing ways.

So I’ve tried to do my best at “putting myself out there” to make friends & connect with people in meaningful ways without draining my social battery and kicking myself afterwards. It’s not always an easy thing to balance, and I frequently find myself farther into the “keeping to myself” side of things than I would like. I think some things over the past few years have contributed to some bad habits in that regard.

During the first few months of 2020, I had started my first semester of college and was spending time with friends while also trying to get to know new people. It was one of the healthiest social periods in my life. My existing friends acted as a comfort zone so I felt fairly free to try to build relationships with new people without jeopardizing those existing relationships.

But, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic and associated response put my work of meeting new people on hold that March, and it affected my abilities to socialize in ways that I wouldn’t really see for years. I was affected by the pandemic like millions of others were, but my situation was just about as favorable as anyone could have hoped for. Once my classes were no longer in person, I decided to move home, where I stayed until late August. This period of time is mostly a blur in my memory, but I know it includes bits of homework, spending time with the same small group of friends, and a fair amount of hours playing video games with my brother. Though there was uncertainty about what the pandemic would bring, and there were frustrations about the limitations that were being requested to curb the pandemic’s effects, this was a time where little was required of me.

When I moved back to school in August, it seemed to me to make the most sense to stay away from new people as much as possible with the intention of not catching or spreading the disease. So that’s what I did for a long time. I spent time with my roommates, and we still socialized with people when it made sense to, but there was still enough unknown about COVID (and no vaccine available), so it seemed intelligent to take as many precautions as possible.

This is slightly off topic, but I have never tested positive for COVID-19. I was definitely on the more careful side of things compared to the people around me—I masked more frequently than lots of friends and classmates once government mandates were loosened—but there was no way for me to isolate myself from other people completely even if I had wanted to (which I didn’t). When one of my roommates got COVID that winter, I was worried I would get it too. I didn’t. When my then-girlfriend (now wife) told me she got COVID in August 2021, I thought that would be the time I got it (we had kissed the night before she tested positive). I didn’t get it. I have taken lots of COVID tests since the pandemic started, with several due to the fact that I had come into close contact with someone who had tested positive, but I never got it. Maybe my precautions worked, but I think I’m probably just lucky.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I thought the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t negatively affect me for a long time. There were inconveniences, but the fact that I got to live comfortably even through those inconveniences is something I know many other people were not afforded. I might be looking back on things with rose-colored glasses, or I might be forgetting the way my mental health was affected during those first few months, but I genuinely felt that I had dodged a bullet.

Now, I feel a little bit differently.

Once restrictions were lifted and the pandemic was a little better understood, it was hard for me to shake the feeling that I needed to keep my distance from new people. It wasn’t that I was distrustful of any one person in particular, it’s just that I had lived through a time where a significant sickness could be contracted by close contact with new people. Consequently, I had developed the habit of not making an effort to socialize with strangers. This habit played into my introverted tendencies. It was easier to spend time with people I already knew because I didn’t have to put in the effort to build a new relationship.

The problem is that, somewhere along the way, my brain decided that the existing relationships that were closest and therefore easiest to nurture were the only ones I really needed to worry about. So I didn’t make as much of an effort to reach out to people I had known from high school or to deepen relationships with people in my college classes. I thought the pandemic had taught me to keep physical distance from others, but the lasting effect is that I have fallen into the bad habit of keeping social distance from other people, too.

And then, for some reason, I convinced myself that the reason I didn’t need to worry about those semi-distant relationships was because those people wouldn’t be interested in cultivating the relationship either. I found myself trapped in the headspace of “If they wanted to get closer to you, they would put in the effort,” which is so ridiculous, of course, because if both people think that way, they will both end up missing out on an opportunity for connection. Any missed opportunity to meaningfully connect with another human, whether it’s for a minute or a lifetime, is a true tragedy.

As I wrote recently, this (stupid and frustrating) belief has stopped me from posting on social media—the one place where social connection is the easiest even though it’s fairly surface level. In particular, I have missed connecting with people through Instagram. I have lots of thoughts about the ways Instagram has changed over the last few years, both by the people building the site and by its users, that I will save for another post. Here, I will just say that Instagram can be a great window into other people’s lives if they want it to be.

And for a while, I really wanted people to have a good window into my life. I didn’t think that my life was particularly spectacular, but that’s the point! Most of the people we know don’t live overly sensational lives, but we enjoy spending time with them and knowing about what’s going on in their lives anyway. I shared when something interesting had happened to me or when I had done something cool, even if it didn’t match the level of notoriety that people would see on the next post in their feed. Sometimes, I posted just to let people know I was still there, that they could still look through the window.

During the last few years, I closed the blinds on my window. It wasn’t on purpose. I wasn’t trying to shut people out. It just kind of happened. And then it kept happening. And suddenly, I’ve only posted four times since the beginning of last year and I feel like no one outside of my family and a few close friends really has any idea what’s going on with me.

But I want to open the blinds. I don’t want to shove my life into people’s faces, but I want them to be able to connect with me and know me if they want to. Part of this will be me sharing on social media, but it will also be me reaching out to people to check in more frequently. I don’t want to look back at relationships I could have deepened if I tried harder—I want to look back grateful that I chose to open up and worked to meaningfully connect with people again.

This post, of course, is part of letting people into my life again. I hope you’re comfortable here, that you kick off your shoes, and that you stay as
long as you’d like.

-GD