I've been (probably not good for me) reading some stuff written during the pandemic (or shortly after*). And people pointing out - RIGHTLY - that while locking down at home** was important to "flatten the curve," it also had a lot of traumatic effects on people.
(*yes, some people vehemently argue IT'S NOT OVER but by their measure the 1918 flu pandemic never ended)
(**as much as we in the US ever did so. The UK was stricter - in some cases, ridiculously so (not allowing people to walk alone, more than a certain distance, outside) and NZ and some of the Asian countries were even stricter than that. But even with the lax lockdown in the US, some of us were MUCH more cautious. It's really only this year I started eating *inside* restaurants again, and I really did spend darn near a year only going to the grocery store or pharmacy - and then only when necessary)
I admit I imagined that people who had close families probably had an easier time than I - all alone, and EXTREMELY alone - did.. But maybe not? In my own circle I've seen a couple divorces in the past couple years, and other people I know report witnessing similar. That in some cases familiarity really did breed contempt, or unresolved irritations came to the surface.
I mostly just cried a lot. And gained 10 pounds because while I was still forcing myself to work out, I wasn't *walking* anywhere and now looking at the step-count on my phone? MOST of the steps I take in a day are just walking around - walking down to the lab to get something at work, walking in the grocery store, walking/being on my feet during class. And I did lose a lot of the ability to enjoy stuff, which hasn't fully come back yet. And I knit far less now, and I think that's part of it.
But I think also people have become more *hostile.* I've complained about the times people drove aggressively at me - running a red light when it was clearly red when they got to it, or yesterday, a guy just bombing out of a side street where he had a stop sign and I had the right of way, and he didn't look, he just went. And yeah, some of that could be inattention but also based on stuff I've seen in public places there does seem to be an attitude on some people's part of "I am the ONLY one who matters"
And we've had a lot more "incidents" on campus. Right now, there is a campus police cruiser parked - basically like those decoy owls you put up to stop birds trying to nest in your eaves - because apparently there is someone who is APPARENTLY employed here (and inexplicably to me, still is***) who was verbally abusive to at least one of our staff people and maybe more than one. And the person he was abusive to - the one I talked to - is a tough cookie (family in law enforcement, rents out houses so has to be a businessperson) and they reported that they were scared enough they called campus police
(*** and this is wild to me because I am a believer in "permanent records" and feel like if I were even somewhat justifiably harsh in speaking to a student, I'd be called on the carpet, and possibly stripped of tenure)
I don't like it. It puts me on edge to think "okay look for this one particular vehicle when you are getting ready to go out to your car and if it's there, maybe you're better off waiting to leave"
And I honestly don't know how much of the "hostility" I see is (a) real (b) has increased in recent years or if I'm just noticing it more. And it's kind of awful how I've become a bit more fearful of interactions - less prone to help someone who might need it - and less open to friendly overtures. And at the same time there seem to be fewer casual social things to do, so I *am* alone a lot of the time, especially in summers when there's no class going on.
(An example of me not helping someone: Friday morning a man walking down the sidewalk stopped in my drive, stooped over, and vomited. I was kind of shocked; in retrospect it was MAYBE someone who was at an Independence Day party that ran late/who passed out somewhere after the party, and it was the result of Too Much Beer, but I admit my first thought was "I should check if he's OK." But then my second thoughts were: (a) No, Norovirus and other viruses are making the rounds again, don't expose yourself to them and (b) you don't know the guy, you don't know what his deal is, he might be dangerous.
I DID watch - I figured if he collapsed I'd be justified in calling EMS - but after he was done he stood back up and kept walking, so.....I guess my assessment of "he was overserved at a party" might have been right.
I contemplated making a bucket of dilute bleach water and dumping it on the spot just in case it was norovirus (though I don't think he'd be able to walk that well if he had that; I've had it and you are NOT mobile with it). I forgot, though, but I assume yesterday's rain washed the remnants of it all away. And anyway, I never walk at the base of my drive - I walk across the yard to get to the mailbox - so I wasn't going to step in it.
But it does worry me on a low level to see how much community and trust we seem to have lost in the last eight to ten years, and I don't know how we get it back. I think of stuff when I was a kid - the town I grew up in had a town ice cream social WHERE PEOPLE BROUGHT HOME BAKED CAKES OR PIES TO SHARE and now I think about that I am amazed. Not just from the stand point of "just one person who has a bit of a twist to them and they could do something like bake Ex-Lax into the chocolate cupcakes" but also the whole allergens thing! And my maternal grandmother almost never locked her door, even into the 1980s. And while I was taught not to pick up hitchhikers, still, there was more trust of people and I knew people who did it (and never had a bad outcome).
And yeah, maybe the "bad things happen when you trust people" is overblown, and that one time out of 100 when a hitchhiker steals the person's car and leaves them stranded is the one that makes the news.
But it does seem the mood of the country has changed of late, and not for the better. And a lot of us are lonely, but are also dismayed at how some folks behave in public, and we're being pushed to do more to support those with less even as we feel like we have less than we once did because of inflation, and it does seem to me that genuine laughter is rarer, and connection is rarer, and I don't know if it's just ME still having the equivalent of a "parking boot" on my brain because of the pandemic and the various losses in my life or if there really is something going on in our society.
And yeah, I get it: I basically have two choices here: first, continue being lonely and accept that there are gonna be a lot of unhappy times and that I might die sooner than I would otherwise (loneliness is a risk factor for heart disease and stuff) OR go out and try to socialize/make friends and deal with the inevitable times of rejection, or the sense of trying to join a group and feeling the vibe being off and wondering if it's that they don't really want you there....and I don't know. The reason I've not done anything is that I put up with a LOT of rejection in my younger life, and I'm not sure I'm up to deal with a lot of it again. But I also realize friendships aren't going to fall into my lap. And the agony is, I don't know which of those two options are worse.
and yes: I did mention it to my counselor, and her reaction was "no, you're not alone in this, a lot of people I have talked to have complained it is very hard to socialize here if you don't have kids that are involved in sports" and it kind of feels to me like the lack of social options beyond "go to the casino"(which is actually NOT social, just lonely people sitting at slot machines) or "have a kid who plays soccer" is not something it should have to be my job to fix. But maybe it is, I don't know, and I'm too busy/lack the people skills for that. (Also in my experience with organizing groups - you do 80% of the work and then people stop showing up after a couple weeks)
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