Edel Coffey: The nostalgia around socialising is wearing thin already

Have you ever broken up with someone and then gotten back together with them in a fit of nostalgia, only to discover soon after, deep in your heart, despite your very best efforts and intentions, despite your new underwear and bed linen, that it just wasn’t the same, that the magic was gone? That’s the feeling that I have about our big return to socialising.

I know we’re all supposed to be back in restaurants and pubs and offices and in each other’s pockets and beds by now, but after the initial rush of being able to stand at the bar again had worn off, the subsequent feeling that swept in was one of underwhelm.

I am an introvert by nature but I’m one of those weird introverts who likes to talk to people and find out all about them. It’s one of the reasons I became a journalist. If I was a recipe, I’d be surprising if unattractive mix of one part recluse, one part party animal, and one part books.

It’s a strange feeling though, having waited this long to socialise only to discover it is not as satisfying as we remember. Hadn’t we, after all, been wishing and hoping and praying for this return to damp bodies warmly pressed up against each other in crowded pubs, a cloud of conversation hovering above us like steam above a rugby scrum? And yet, I now find myself fleeing these scenes like some sort of anti-social Cinderella.

My aversion is not even a fear of physical intimacy or catching Covid or any of those very reasonable, rational responses to emerging from isolation. It is more a case that socialising isn’t as good as I remember it. It isn’t like it used to be. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster actually as I vacillate between wanting go to a house party and do shots and then wanting to open my front door only to receive food deliveries. 

It’s like I’m sitting on a giant pendulum (picture Miley Cyrus on her wrecking ball) swinging from wild, full-on nights out before swinging quickly back 180 degrees to cowering behind my couch praying for a reintroduction of the 2km restriction.

Maybe I’m just out of condition but I’m finding the re-entry to socialising exhausting. 

I seem to need more and more decompression time after each social engagement now, an urge to retreat, to replenish my power stores that have been inexplicably sapped by the sheer effort of maintaining a conversation.

I remember before I had children some of my friends who had kids would occasionally call around to visit me and I will never forget the relief I would feel when they left. As the house settled back into its creaky silence, I would pick up the knocked-over chairs and replace books on shelves, before lying down on the couch for an hour or so to reassemble the parts of me that had been shattered by the noise and the psychic attrition of being around tiny, loud, breaking-things people.

That old familiar feeling has returned after my recent forays into socialising. Perhaps I just need more practice, a bit more exposure, like returning to the gym after a hiatus (which is something else I still haven’t done yet). 

You have the memory of being fit, but you are no longer fit. Your brain remembers that you were once able to do this physical trick, but your body, rusty from lack of practice, says no. Likewise, I remember being in pubs and groups of people, verbally jousting and energetically engaging in conversation. But now, red-faced and sweaty, my conversational muscles refuse to lift that weight. The art of conversation is now a phantom limb.

And in the vacuum left by it, as conversations falter, I’ve found my mind wandering towards my phone, or mentally scrolling through what I’m going to watch on Netflix when I get home, and how soon can I get home anyway, I wonder? As the tumbleweed bounce across the path of stalled conversations, my mind digests the undeniable fact that sitting on a couch is so much nicer than standing in high heels.

So how can we kick-start our social muscles? How can we get them back in shape again? Like, most things, I fear it will take some sort of bootcamp, or at least significant effort and faithful practice.

Maybe these are just the scars of the pandemic. Maybe we are now an awkward, standoffish people instead of the 'hail fellow well met' that we used to be. But I’m not so sure. Out for a drink with a friend recently, we got talking to a couple at the next table. 

They were on a night away from their children and within minutes we were all chatting, laughing and sharing stories, just like the old days. It felt good to talk to strangers again. So maybe we do just need a bit more exercise. 

Maybe like those relationships that work out the second time around, if we just practice enough, and apply enough fake-it-till-you-make-it positivity, socialising will feel normal again. And maybe the old magic will return.

• Breaking Point by Edel Coffey is out now