Pandemic Isolation Got Your Tongue?

As I emerge from my pandemic social isolation of over a year, I'm realizing I kind of forgot how to be a person.

I didn't realize it until they were put to the test, but my social skills have definitely gotten rusty.

Somehow Even More Awkward Than Before

For example, the first time it was safe for me to eat indoors with a group of vaccinated friends, I felt like a two-year-old trying to operate a fork. It was disturbingly hard to get the enchilada from the plate into my mouth. I would misjudge and stuff in too huge of a bite (bewildering). That, or it would somehow end up anywhere besides my mouth. I swear I'd been able to feed myself successfully throughout this past year, but something about the social element of being seen or of simultaneously thinking about conversation made my brain short-circuit. I could not multitask like this!

And there definitely have been times where I stumble over my words, flipping around letters to the point of basically speaking accidental Pig Latin. Putting together a sentence while face-to-face just wasn't computing.

There's also a lot of this:

"How are you?"

"I'm good, you?"

"Good! And you?"

It Makes Total Sense

The good news is, a lot of people seem to feel this way. So hopefully we can all give ourselves and each other some grace.

We've spent over a year dealing with massive collective trauma and total disruption of our daily lives and interactions. We've got a lot of processing to do, a lot of healing to do. It would be naïve to think that living through this ongoing world tragedy wouldn't take a toll on our brains.

And it makes sense that when any set of skills doesn't get used for so long, it atrophies.

What To Do About It

Just like with an atrophied muscle, I'm trying to build back up slowly. Here's what has helped me so far:

1. Keep it short and sweet. I learned this one through trial and error. If you haven't seen someone for a year, there can be pressure to have an hours-long, super in-depth talk when you first reunite. But these long interactions felt overwhelming and my brain would hit a wall where I couldn't engage anymore. On the other hand, short talks, short walks, even short phone calls have felt just right for checking in, catching up, and leaving on a high note.
2. Acknowledge the weirdness. When I saw one of my dearest friends for the first time in a long time, she immediately defused any potential strain by saying, "I don't know how to socialize anymore and I'm not sure how long I'll be able to put sentences together!" Putting that out there let us off the hook put us both at ease. And sure enough, during a silence, we acknowledged that, yep, this is just how our brains are gonna be for a while.
3. Have something else to focus on. While it's great to be able to embrace silence, I've found myself more comfortable doing so when there's a distraction. For instance, it has been helpful to attempt socializing while bird-watching at a pond, sitting around a campfire, or listening to music. This stuff both provides a point of conversation and provides comfort during the absence of conversation. Not to mention, it's soothing to the senses to have this fresh sensory input after a year of sameness.

And ultimately, having forgotten how to be a person has a perk: there's a chance to pause and be more thoughtful and deliberate about what kind of people we want to be.