dear fellow extroverts + tech for good
why do zoom happy hours sound tiring -- even to those of us who thrive by socializing?
THE CORNER OF MY BED, HEATED BLANKET —
the barrier to entry to restart writing this newsletter is feeling high these days. the same goes for calling That Friend and starting The Hobby and picking up the kindle and planning a zoom party.
but as an extrovert…shouldn’t i be feeling the opposite? shouldn’t i be starving for conversation with old and new friends? shouldn’t i have all these crazy uncontrollable chatterbox thoughts that would have been used for small talk at the coffee shop that i should pour into this newsletter? and wouldn’t it warm my heart to host a zoom happy hour?
yes! and well, according to my facetime history, no.
more later, but first my words + reads:
my words: layoffs are disproportionately impacting satellite offices, and no one is really talking about it.
learning lesson: i, along with many of my colleagues and friends across other publications, have written a number of stories in these past few weeks about companies laying off staff. while these stories are important to share, i want to emphasize that they are deeply saddening (and never, ever fun to write). human first, journalist second.
etc: i started a weekly column of efforts made by startups around the world to help out during covid-19. it is insane to witness and report the creativity around us right now.
unorganized tab time:
distance learning isn’t working
me and alex talk to charles hudson live
anyways,
in so many ways right now, i’m lucky. i live with great people, am healthy enough to leave my home from time to time, and have a supportive boyfriend (who reminded me that being an introvert isn’t exactly ideal either right now, either).
i have lovely friends and a family — and they all pick up my phone calls.
but while these truths make me happy, arms length energy has begun to feel uninspiring and exhausting.
i’m starting to realize that being an extrovert does not mean you need a stack of calendar invites to brighten up your day. maybe it just means you need a life that is a little less…planned.
like talking to the barista about their day, running into friends while on a run, asking the uber driver about that picture on their dashboard, or grabbing a co-worker for a quick lunch walk (and vent session) around the block. like making a friend in a dressing room and sharing groans while in line for the bathroom at a packed bar.
i miss the non-obvious bits of socialization. and i miss talking to people without the pretense that all is well. there’s beauty in having a moment be just what it is. a moment. in saying hello to someone you’ll definitely never see again.
so, to any extrovert out there right now who is confused as to why they’re still struggling even with a sea of virtual togetherness surrounding them: i hear you. remember that this shit is complicated. remember you’re allowed to be both happy and tired from online friendship (and heck, even thankful too).
i know you don’t need me to tell you that life is different right now. but maybe some of you needed to hear that it’s okay to just now realize that the small things you took for granted are actually the big things you now need.
to figuring this out day by day,
n
thank you so much for this!!! i have been legitimately feeling this about facetimes and zoom so hard and didn’t know how exactly to put it into words without sounding like a jerk to friends or not like myself, a classic extrovert. love reading your newsletter and really do look forward to your take if that helps lower the barrier to entry at all!! thank you so much for all you do!
it sometimes feels like the conversations you'd have with someone at TJ, cvs, or getting takeout are also gone out of fear during this pandemic, which is probably the hardest thing to deal with when your serotonin for the day is the small talk you have with people passing by in your life. thank you for this - perfectly summing up what so many of us are feeling right now.