Reentry

In a recent interview for The New York Times podcast "Sway," host Kara Swisher was talking with Samantha Bee about the difficulty in reengaging in real life after, well, you know. "Do you know how to interact with people anymore?" asked Swisher. Replied Bee, "No, I do not. My social anxiety is advanced now. I find great protection in my mask." And when Bee finally did have people over to her house? "We threw so much entertainment at them. We just over-provided, to the point that they fled. They were just like, 'Can we please get out of here?'"

It can be tough to become social again after we spent a year learning how to be distant.

Every sandbox you played in, including school, work, social and extended family, was summarily kneecapped in March of 2020. Overnight your daily in-person encounters amounted to your immediate family and delivery people. There was the occasional foray to get supplies, but conversation and engagement was kept to a purposeful minimum. Even if you did chat with your neighbor from opposite sides of the street or on either side of a fence, there was only one topic for discussion. There was no talk of movies or restaurants or concerts or ball games because, well, there were no movies or concerts or restaurants or ball games.

Yes, there was Zoom. So much of progress is someone coming up with something and then looking for the breakthrough moment when it finally makes a difference. And if ever there was a case of a hand looking for a glove, this was it. While the platform was already the leading video conferencing app, last year it went positively nuclear. Steve Jobs famously said, "People don't know what they want until you show it to them." Well, at the end of 2019, there were 10 million daily participants on the service. By April of 2020 the number had grown to 300 million. They showed it to us, and we wanted it.

But that virtual facetime also meant we lost our in-person chops. While we became experts at muting and unmuting, we got out of practice on small talk and body language. While we became really good at juggling our phones to check texts just out of camera range, we got rusty on standing in the same place and looking interested while the speaker was really boring. And while we got proficient at curating our outfits above the waist, we forgot that showing up in person meant needing pants. Well, maybe not forgot, but at least showing up in something that didn't have an elastic waist.

On the flip side, it will be a pleasure to have a meeting with no extraneous distractions. Where only the people meant to be there are there: no dogs, no kids, no guys cutting the lawn. Or to look at Tyler sitting across from you and not have to wonder why he didn't make his bed behind him. Or why Professor Smittens has a plastic schnauzer with a mortarboard over her left shoulder. Or what a pleasure it is to look straight at Ben's face and not up his nose.

Still, reentry is hard. Be assured we'll all get there eventually, because interacting with people in real life is no different from riding a bike. The reason you don't forget how to do either is that both are procedural memories. As opposed to declarative memory, which helps you store "what is what," procedural or muscle memory is more about "how and what." And so laying off skills you haven't used for a while means that while you may be rusty, with a little practice they will come back. It's that way with playing an instrument or ice skating or tying your shoes. And yes, it's also the same with laughing politely while your boss tells you about her adorable grandchild who looks like a monkey.

So ease back on in. For sure you might not get the sarcasm your co-worker employs, or have to relearn the ability to produce that little chuckle needed to encourage a member of your book group to continue, or feel awkward doing that subtle wink to a teammate that didn't work on a webcam. Expect a few speed bumps in your live punning, but you'll get over it. (Did you get that one? No? Not to worry, you'll catch up.)

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is relearning how to appear interested. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.