Social Decay

Can’t sleep. Been thinking

about people from high school.

***

I keep wondering

where they have gone

and where we went wrong.

People who I used

to depend upon, people who I used

to see every day. Now they’re just

memories. It’d be weird to contact

most of them. See how they’re doing,

if they’re still the same, of if they

changed and what changed them.

***

I keep thinking about them and how

everything is so ephemeral. I’m tired

of how ephemeral everything is. It’s

hard to hold onto anything when

everything keeps changing. I don’t

know what to think about

the whole process of growing up.

It feels like a lot of school was a waste

of time, trying to reach random

finish lines, learn tedious things,

unlearn them later, and regret

not knowing certain things

that would probably be better

for adulthood. I can’t sleep

because I’m thinking about things

from 15 years ago, a whole generation

ago. Who would still consider me

a friend? Who still thinks about me

and which skills did I learn that

were actually useful? I wonder

if I would be in a different spot

if I had learned how to code,

build robots, or design apps.

***

Was my adolescent life overpacked

with social requirements? It’s hard not

to think that in a pandemic

when all social occasions

are scaled back to a grand degree.

***

It feels like so many conversations

and interactions were just time fillers.

We were put into social situations

as incubators. They didn’t know

what to do with us, so they

overwhelmed us with people.

It’s cacophony. I’ve been living

a life of cacophony. And I keep

struggling with anxiety as waves

of different people come and go

into my life. Some who I rather like

and the feeling is mutual. Some who

I rather like

to later be randomly

dismissed by them. And some

who I wished I hadn’t met at all

who continue to haunt me

for decades. Just what

are we doing

with all this

excessive socializing?

And why did it take a pandemic

for me to realize the weight

of socializing

was a serious burden?

With more people comes more

expectations. What is a reasonable

number of friends? How long

should a friendship last? Why do

I care for so long

while others can’t be bothered?

I don’t know where the line

begins and ends for attachment.

How attached should you be to people?

Am I too obsessed with socialization

or am I too self aware?