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If I had to guess the author's friends are likely getting married and having kids, going through a different phase in life, the author isn't, and is thinking this must be the universe conspiring against his way of life, instead of the usual "nothing is forever".

No one is entitled to the attention of others and the pandemic helped many of us to notice our time is finite and we should better spend it doing what we like and want. Be it being at home on a couch in slippers or otherwise.

>No one is entitled to the attention

They aren't, but at the same time the world sure is feeling more lonely. Old friends will move on, but I did notive that Meetups never really recovered in my area post pandemic (and they weren't in great shape in 2017-9 to begin with). What does one do when it feels like there's nowhere to make friends?

>helped many of us to notice our time is finite and we should better spend it doing what we like and want.

It's not necessarily volunatry for everyone. Everything's more expensive and not everyone's gotten wages that keep up with inflation. Or they got laid off and are recovering from that. It just so happens the cheapest entertainment these days is in fact in your own house.

I haven't been back to meetup after the pandemic as I moved cities but most of the meetups I used to go didn't come back, which is unfortunate. I guess the main option is for you to start your own, not much else to be done. Before the pandemic me and a friend resurrected the Golang meetup in PHL and it was mostly a success, you won't know if it will work or not unless you try it.

It also seemed like Meetup jacked up their prices. I remember seeing a lot of groups go dark after warnings from Meetup that their maintainers had abandoned the group due to the cost.

> Old friends will move on, but I did notive that Meetups never really recovered in my area post pandemic

I think there is this setup period when parents do things for their kids and the rate of things decay as we get older, more lazy and less enthusiastic.

Covid just made the middle age boring happen earlier, which people blame on their kids normally, for a generation and they didn't recover.

Pubs have raised the price of a normal beer 2x where I live since pre-covid. The pub culture, which was allready weak, is not coming back any time soon.

> it just so happens the cheapest entertainment these days is in fact in your own house.

These days? That is pretty much true since advent of home computers in 80s/90s.

Maybe late 90's. 80's Home computers were fairly expensive if you adjust for inflation and media was limited (and far from instant. Oh, the dial-up days where even saving a Gamefaqs guide could take minutes. Can only wonder how the early 90's went). In addition, it was much cheaper than today to go out on a bar crawl or even the arcades.

But i think we both agree entertainment got cheaper while outside life more expensive. We can grab internet connected devices for barely $100 and a single entertainment subscription (Netflix, Gamepass, Spotify) is maybe $10/month for an entire catalog. I can't even go out for lunch for $10 unless I do Costco.

In the 1980s, it was typically things away from the computer - renting videos or video games from Blockbuster and things like that. Not to mention all of the actually interesting things on cable.

The local video store would run a deal over the summers when I was a kid where you paid $30 and got three, two night rentals (new releases excluded) a week for the summer school break. Being able to grab a new game or movie every other day (since you were already there to return the previous one on time) was great.

Looking at Budapest, how it was 10-20 years ago, and how it is now: there is something in what the author tries to convey. I’m not saying that it’s a problem, and it’s definitely healthier how people in their 20s live now there, but before and after COVID young adult personal life in Budapest are wildly different. Night life is clearly dying in Budapest, and my friends under 25 go out waaaay more infrequently (and not just with me). Heck I’m in pubs in Budapest as much as them, and I don’t even live in Hungary anymore. And not just pubs, but basically every shared public space which is good to gather with random friends. I met with my closest friends in person almost every day (not because of university, or work), they meet maybe every other week. So I think that there is really some change.

I was recently in a relationship with someone that worked as a recruiter and thus is very much a people person. One of the frequent complaints she brought up was how I could have lived to my 40s and still be so bad with people.

I don't know where I'm going with this except maybe that extroverts simply do not understand introverts. They read about it and think they know our issue, but they don't understand it or don't believe it's a real thing.

> but they don't understand it or don't believe it's a real thing.

Yeah, this seems to underlie a lot of misunderstandings. I was reading on another recent HN thread about people's ability to form mental images[1] and it shows a similar struggle of people with different minds trying to understand each other.

The older I get, the more I get the sense that people can be quite different on the inside, yet live a lot of their lives being unaware or unbelieving of how much mental variety is out there.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41138338

This is purely due to the empathizer-systematizer dichotomy. Give her any sort of complex system and these tables turn quickly.

Interestingly, her inability to empathise with your perspective despite being people orientated indicates shes probably not the sharpest. Sorry.

Au contraire, there's a difference between social skills and introversion.

You can be introverted and have strong social skills. In fact, if you want to be successful, you will need strong social skills. Development is one of the few areas in which this is not the case, although the people who move up will have the strongest social skills.

Some will view it as playing politics, being manipulative, what have you. But ultimately these aren't personality traits, they're skills.

It's possible to be an extrovert with bad social skills, i.e. you're obnoxious. Or an introvert with fantastic social skills, i.e. you're the next CTO. Some, maybe even most, introverts don't know this. So they don't develop their skills and wonder why they don't succeed.

All to say, the recruiter is 100% right. How CAN you be 40 with such poor social skills? Well, you're an introvert and everyone has told you your whole life that's not for you. So you purposefully ignore those skills.

As you alluded to, it's also easy to forgo chasing these skills when we can make decent money just solving puzzles while only requiring the most basic of emotional intelligence.

This is funny because I generally have something similar for extraverts. I agree with your take that extraverts don't understand introverts and it's because our true skills lie way beyond a shallow five minute conversation.

”think they know our issue”

I saw this once and loved it:

”I used to think I was introverted because I really liked being alone but it turns out I just like being at peace & I am very extroverted when I’m around people who bring me peace.”

So, I’m breaking up with you. It’s not me, it’s you.

The ability to live our lives online well predates the pandemic. Remote work hasn't prevented experiences (except perhaps being tied to a commute), it's enabled us to live more flexible lives.

My partner (extreme introvert), and myself (somewhat an ambivert) have travelled the world for 6 years as digital nomads and rarely if ever do extroverted things. But introvert is not the same as not leaving the house.

We've done ~50 countries, quietly, patiently and without broadcasting our lives for all to see. We've learned to sail and lived on a sailboat for a while without starting a youtube channel so the world can follow us doing it.

I find the article mostly to be flawed and ridiculous. Calling introverts selfish is obnoxious. This reads like a (fake) column from "Sex and the City".

Carrie: "I found myself wondering if humans would go extinct if they didn't go to bars every night".

> But introvert is not the same as not leaving the house.

This one. If I ever needed to describe myself it would be between an extreme introvert or at least 'a guy in himself'.

But if you would ask the guys in the bars I frequent... I doubt introvert would be the word they say.

That's what a lot of people don't get about introverts. Yes, I interact with people, and yes, I leave the house. I just interact with certain smaller set of people which I am not eager to extend on each opportunity (it may happen, but slower), and I leave the house when I feel like it - which may happen less frequently than some other people, so what.

I've always looked at introvert vs extrovert as how someone recharges their mental battery. I think of myself as a Social Introvert. I like socializing with other people when I'm recharged, but I need alone time to recover. When I'm done being social, I'm 100% done and can't be bothered to continue interacting.

I don't think the extent to which people feel comfortable socialising stays constant. I'm naturally introverted, and with a few exceptions I find being in other people's company exhausting - however I'm not a complete loner, and do enjoy it in smallish doses. It's as if I have a "level of fitness" socially. In my head, I consider that "forcing" myself to go to social events maintains this fitness.

Now think of the pandemic lockdown. It could have caused introverts to have lost their social fitness entirely.

I've noticed this as well. I think it's a pretty good analogy. That realization came after being homeschooled for a few years as a teen. In my case, this meant less opportunity to socialize. After returning to public school, my "level of fitness" increased pretty quickly to way it's consider normal/healthy. The pandemic had similar effects that required a bit of effort to correct.

Just like physical fitness, some need more/less exercise to stay fit. There will also be different preferences for were that exercise is done (at or outside the office).

This post resonated with me. I'm also naturally introverted but I've realized over the years (I'm in my 40s) that forcing myself to go out and be social regularly is ultimately good for me. I've noticed that my social skills have declined somewhat since COVID and now I feel a lot more mental "inertia" I have to push through if I want to go to a social event.

fitness is a good analogy, but it goes both ways.

introverts need a little push to work the muscles that let you socialize and interact.

extroverts need a little push to work the muscles that let you sit quietly and contemplate.

hopefully society doesn't succumb to one side dominating so half the people get to be lazy while the other half is constantly exercising. ideally everybody get a mix of exercise and rest.

I think it's honestly a good thing for hardcore introverts to stay home when they want to hibernate. Socialising with someone when they clearly don't want to be there is exhausting for me, let alone them, and nobody wins.

At the same time, as someone who straddles the line between introversion and extraversion, it does feel like there's a higher activation energy for me now. I want to go out and do things, but it often seems to require more planning and more mental effort. I'm not happy with this change in myself, but there doesn't seem to be a quick way to fix it other than just putting more deliberate effort into being social and less into all the other stuff.

I think the author is projecting her own feelings onto introverts in this piece. I feel the same way as she presumably does. Lockdown changed me in ways I don't like, albeit minor ones, and it's something of a struggle to manually keep doing the social things my old self did automatically.

I agree, I think this article is addressed more to the people on the fence rather than the hardcore introverts who feel certain that achieving their fullest lives doesn't require much social interaction.

>Lockdown changed me in ways I don't like, albeit minor ones, and it's something of a struggle to manually keep doing the social things my old self did automatically.

loosening friendships didn't help. People got busier or maybe they are fine with how the lockdown changed them. It already took some time to arrange even small hangouts, but these days it seems like I barely see my "best" friends if it's not some special occasion like a birthday or very big convention.

I didn't get that the article is black and white, but... I do have a sincere question. Isn't it good that we be forced to socialize a bit more than makes us comfortable? Analogy: in middle school I, an overweight non-athlete, was forced to run a mile at the end of the semester and the end of the year like all students. It was miserable. But it's undeniably good that kids be able to suffer through a reasonable amount of cardio.

Can one make the same argument about introverts? Sincere question, not rhetorical.

On one hand, I agree that getting outside of one's comfort zones is often good for personal growth — that could be introverts being forced to be extroverted a bit, or extroverts being forced to be introverted a bit, and all sorts of other traits.

Some people don't like dancing — maybe we should force them to dance, regardless? There's a fine line between encouraging/pushing someone to do something or try something for their own good, and letting people live their own lives in their own way.

The way you phrase your question makes me think that you conceive of introversion as a sort of health problem — like being overweight. I'm sure that's true of many people. Just look in this thread for all the overlap that people have between being depressed and being introverted / staying at home / etc. But I do just want to plant the seed in your mind that there can be introverted people who are quite happy and healthy and "living their best life," so to speak, too. They may be dancing, just with nobody looking.

To answer this and another comment, I think of it being able to manage social interactions reasonably well as a life skill. Without it people can have a really bad day if they have to deal with aggressive salespeople, unpleasant customer service issues, or overbearing family members.

The dancing analogy is a good one but while I can go a month without dancing I cannot go a month without required human interactions that put me in uncomfortable positions.

A peer post suggested that one should therefore force extroverts into uncomfortable situations too. My thought here is that I’m not trying to torture one group but not another. School forced me to be more athletic than I found enjoyable. I don’t believe it was that they were trying to make me feel bad, even though that’s exactly what running does for me. By analogy I would not ask the school athletes to gain extra weight just because I was forced to jog a mile.

I don’t have a dog in this race. I’m not even suggesting that it should be done, just sort of bringing up the thought experiment. I’m an ambivert or whatever it’s called. I could happily spend a year not dealing with people but I can also do it with unusual skill when called to do so.

I appreciate your perspective (:

> By analogy I would not ask the school athletes to gain extra weight just because I was forced to jog a mile.

This is why I don't like your analogy (no offense meant); it approximately correlates extrovert=healthy=strong and introvert=unhealthy=weak. While I don't think athletes should be forced to gain weight, I do imagine it's good for extroverts to have to sit with themselves in quietude a little more than they might otherwise, just like I imagine it's good for introverts to do the opposite. Not in every case of course, but speaking broadly.

So I guess I see it as two equally-valid approaches trying to understand each other better, more than anything.

Maybe what I'm saying is: I agree with you — it's a good idea. But it's opposite is also a good idea, and I wouldn't want it to be one-sided.

Maybe another point of fuzziness is whether "introverted" means "bad at social interactions" or "prefers to avoid social interactions" (and/or "finds social interactions draining"). I tend to see it as the latter, but maybe you mean it as the former?

Yes, only if you genuinely agree with the same argument about extroverts, i.e. force them to be in solitude for more than they feel comfortable.

I'm not talking about literally locking them up in jail, but let's say if your logic holds, we should be able to say COVID did extroverts a lot of good by making them appreciate solitude during the lockdown periods.

It’s the usual “people not like me are wrong”.

https://nypost.com/2012/02/05/extroverts-destroy-the-world/ ?

For the author the pandemic clearly was somewhat traumatizing – but even more the realization that the large parts world don’t share her view.

https://youngvulgarian.medium.com/hunger-b71db12b8fd7

https://youngvulgarian.medium.com/im-so-bored-4df692695330

>Must it be a war? Must there be a winner?

Definitely a war. There's no question about that.

I'm not all that familiar with Bruckner; but reading about him seems to make me feel like he's not a contemporary anymore; probably not understanding the complexity here.Not to mention the impossible understanding of per jurisdiction differences.

>here had been waves of terrorist attacks across Europe, and endless headlines about the climate emergency coming for us all.

Which has everything to do with this war.

>I think it's good that the status quo got mixed up a bit. The introverts don't have to defend themselves or feel like outsiders quite so much.

It's not so much what the introverts are doing, it's all about what the extroverts arent allowed to do anymore. Having been prohibited by law. Whereas the introverts have not been attacked YET.

>It almost feels like the author is eager to get back to what they are comfortable with, at the expense of (by their numbers) 1/3 of other people's lifestyles. It's almost like they are the ones afraid of this change — like they are the selfish ones.

Agreed, you can see the narcissism in the article.

>But I don't really go for the whole us-vs-them approach at all.

100% it's us vs them. There's no balance to be struck, the attack has been ongoing for a long time and if you surrender in this fight, it will only be getting much worse. The big difference is that