Monday, July 20, 2020

An extrovert in quarantine

At this point in the shelter in place / social distancing life my favorite game to play is “why am I so tired”. I play it every day starting around 8am and continue until 5pm when I can start counting down the hours until the kids go to bed and I can turn off my mind before getting my 8+ hours of sleep in.

Potential answers include: lack of exercise, lack of outside time, dehydration, need for caffeine, general boredom, general depression and my favorite, being an extrovert with no one to hang out with.

Yes, the first few are probably the correct answer, but hear me out in the last one. Extroverts by definition get energy from social engagement and don’t do so well in solitude. And in even more so, extroverts can actually lose energy if they spend too much time alone.

And so with me being an extrovert with no one to hang out with, my energy levels have plummeted. I find myself getting excited and energized talking to random people on the street for as little as 30 seconds. I mean, I verbally bear-hugged a women who wanted to briefly talk about blackberries when we were picking them last weekend.

Yes, I could probably fix the issue with a little exercise and fresh air (or at least reduce the effects), but my money is on the final answer. So to all of my fellow extroverts out there: I feel you. Hopefully we will be able to get together soon and finally recharge our batteries like our fellow introverts have been doing since March.

And in the meantime I am going to leverage this as an excuse for my weekly zoom happy hours and drive-by social visits with friends and family.

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