There Will Be 2 Types of Post-pandemic Socializers

[littlemissmartypants]

One group will say yes as often as it can. The other won’t be able to forget how nice it is to sit at home on the couch.

JOE PINSKER
10:37 AM ET

A post-pandemic discussion question: You get home from work on a Friday night and change into sweatpants. It’s been an exhausting week. A text message comes in. Your good friend wants to know if you’d like to meet up last minute for a drink, which is something that’s safe to do again. You’d love to catch up, but you’re pretty tired. Do you go?

Snip

On the one hand, people will be freshly aware that they shouldn’t take the ability to attend social gatherings for granted. On the other, they also will have experienced, albeit involuntarily, the occasional pleasures of having fewer social commitments. Introverts and extroverts alike may feel torn between taking advantage of their regained freedom and preserving some of the quiet of pandemic life, but many people will end up in one of two distinct camps.

The first is one we can call Team Yes. “Post-pandemic, I don’t intend to wait if I want to try a restaurant or go to an event,” Ilona Westfall, a 38-year-old freelance writer in Lakewood, Ohio, told me. “I plan on saying yes more. Yes to parties, yes to concerts, yes to beach hangouts with my friends.”

After more than a year of not having much to say yes to, it would be hard not to feel that sort of urgency. But nationwide, this reaction will likely be tempered by a newfound taste for a lower-key life. Per a report

https://theharrispoll.com/the-great-awakening/

released by the Harris Poll in March, three-quarters of survey respondents said they learned during the pandemic that they “preferred smaller social gatherings at home or at [a] friend’s place over going out to bars or restaurants.” A similar proportion predicted that in the post-pandemic world, they would miss “the comfort of [their] home while socializing.”

Snip

More at the link.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/04/post-pandemic-socializers-two-types/618678/

❤ pants

[Ocelot II]

1. I never socialized much anyway so I doubt that my day-to-day life will change a lot.

The major difference now is that I feel safer doing some shopping instead of ordering everything for delivery, and I can hang out with a few other vaccinated people. It will be awhile before I start going to restaurants although I used to eat out (cheaply) fairly often because I was too lazy to cook, or movies or concerts or anywhere there are a lot of people indoors. So my relatively solitary existence will continue in more or less the same way, just with more flexibility.

[yonder]

2. Not sure if there's a Team No, but I'm definitely not a Team Yes

Some old bandmates and I got together to play some tunes last week. All of us are vaccinated but it was the first time in well over a year I've rubbed elbows with a group other than close family. It was fun seeing each other and sharing tunes but I was glad to get home afterwards - a bit rusty in the socializing department I suppose.

-Team Not Yet

[dameatball]

3. Not much to do in my little rural town, but some friends are opening a wine bar nearby. I am looking

forward to it. Seriously, there is nothing to do around here except for one RW beer/liquor oriented dive bar that is just not appealing. Everything else is in the 15-20 mile range. If it turns out there is a nice place to drop in maybe once or twice a week I would enjoy that option. As long as it is non-smoking it may be a nice addition to the socially desolate climate around here.

[IbogaProject]

4. I've been in both camps over my adult life

I've been in both camps over my adult life.

Typical slowdown in going out having a family.

Now I'm planning on being more social going forward. NYC and my old NJ haunts have lots to do.

[Warpy]

5. I was leery of going out amongst 'em even before Covid

because the occasional Trumper was just so damnably uncivil and they didn't all wear the hats so you'd know who they were so you could avoid them.

Any transition back to a full social life is just not going to happen, I never had one in the first place. I might shop more often than every six weeks, maybe even every two weeks, but that might push it.

It's shocking how easily I weathered several lockdowns. Opening the door will be the tough part.

[Dreampuff]

6. I guess I'm one of the more fortunate people

Because I am retired, but I have thought of going out to work part-time when this is all over, but we still have some pretty high numbers here.

I also live in a warm climate so I have never totally been confined to the house and have continued with my nature walks and bumped into the usual people I chat with. I adore them and their dogs and as a rule, we have all been very respectful and kept our distance from each other. Other than a brief chat with a couple of neighbors, I don't need much more socializing than that. I have my husband and my pets so I am basically good to go and I definitely feel blessed. I have a lot of empathy for those who had to continue working throughout this whole thing and being in constant contact with others.