This hasn’t always been the case—I used to consider myself a pretty social person; I lovelovelove good music, conversation, companionship, and fun. I remember doing one of those personality test thingies back in the day, where you end up with four letters, and my ABCD (or whatever it was) outcome suggested I was thoughtful but extremely outgoing, or something like that.
But things have shifted over the years, and I’ve been trying to figure out lately what has changed. I think I’ve got it narrowed down…
1. Covid. Starting during the Pandemic years, I think I discovered that isolation wasn’t all that bad. I could mostly relax—except for the politics and pending world annihilation thing—and be myself. I could live in stretch pants and ill-fitting men’s t-shirts, I could eat a cold lambchop for breakfast and a waffle with Doritos for dinner. I didn’t even need an excuse to stay home, since it was understood we’d ALL be staying home. Getting “back to normal,” socially at least, after Pandem-onium, was harder than I expected and not necessarily what I wanted to do.
2. Hormones. Seriously, I think dang near everything that goes on in a woman’s body & mind, good or bad, can be blamed on hormones—too much, too little, wrong kinds, wrong times, etc. Meanwhile, male-dominated Western medicine still buys into Freud’s hyster-ical women claptrap, and male docs tend to dismiss women’s health concerns anyway. So maybe, as I’ve aged, my shifting hormones are eating away at my social brain…
3. Evolution. Maybe 70 years of life experience has pushed me naturally from extrovert to introvert. In a Darwinian sense, I had to be social in my youth so I could attract a virile male (or two) and pass on my genes, right? Now, with my spent little ovary-nuggets, I just need a decent glass of pinot noir and a long, hot bath. Also see #2.
4. ADHD. I suspect a strong genetic/familial propensity toward some degree of ADHD. And the older I get (also see #2), the less tolerant I am of overstimulation. I know “anxiety” is an overused buzzword now, but I do often feel anxious around too much noise, too many people, too close quarters, too many lights. In overly stimulating situations, I find myself holding my breath, and I’m afraid my blue pallor will put people off.
5. Age. Maybe I’m just getting crabbier in my old age (also see #2). Between the joint pain, liver spots, and daily shovels full of prescriptions and supplements, I’m turning into the old lady who takes the neighbor kids’ ball inside and gives it to her dog.
6. Listening/Hearing. This has been an obsession of mine lately—the difference between listening and hearing. As I’ve mentioned ad nauseam to anyone who will listen (see what I did there?), we don’t really listen to each other. Rather, we only wait for a pause, so we can interject more about ourselves. If you fill a room with people, we’ll all be competing to talk about ourselves. The poet Rainer Marie Rilke says, “Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.” And yes, I see the irony in writing this blog post—about myself.
7. Mood Unpredictability (Swings). I should add that SOMETIMES, I love a good protest/concert/crowded bar/fair/party, with throngs of people, loud music, dancing, chatty debates about black holes and alien (the outer space kind) ecotourists vs. reptilian body snatchers, corndogs, carnival games, and absolutely inaccurate Renaissance reenactments. I will, however, need a month of hibernation following such occasions in order to recoup.
Unfortunately, I never know if a given occasion is going to be a 1-6 or a 7 until the moment is upon me. So if I suddenly duck out with some lame excuse like “I forgot to make my bed” (I NEVER make my bed), or “my chihuahua is depressed,” or “I left laundry unfolded” (the average number of times I re-start the dryer with a full load I’ve neglected is 5), you’ll know. Meanwhile, I’m helping to organize another birthday party for next weekend…
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