I'm having a hard time with friendships at the moment and I can't work out how much of that is due to the whole social distancing/ lockdown thing, or due to other stuff.
At the same time as the pandemic, I lost my best friend to ovarian cancer, went into a surreally bad phase of (menopausal) depression where I've hyper-isolated and withdrawn from all friends, and lot of life changes that have come with huge, fundamental shifts in identity and sense of self.
I can't work out whether it's all just one big cluster-f*ck of things that negatively impact friendship, or whether a large part of it is related to the effects of the pandemic.
I've always been a recluse, always been an introvert, always been very happy to spend time by myself, never get bored because there's endless books to read and projects to work on... And the whole lockdown and social distancing phase seems to have been a real boost to introverts that their way of living life was this huge skillset and suddenly they were the ones who were great at life skills, where previously it was the extroverts that seemed to thrive.
I dunno. Friendship is such a confusing mess to me atm. I feel at middle age, I'm also undergoing a change of what friendship even means to me.
ETA: I don't even know what I would theoretically like to experience in a friendship as I head into the second half of my life... I used to know what I aspired to in a friendship, but as I've left my childhood, teens, 20s, 30s and now 40s behind... I'm not even sure what I would theoretically wish for in a friendship... I'm not sure what to search for and invest in...
At the same time as the pandemic, I lost my best friend to ovarian cancer, went into a surreally bad phase of (menopausal) depression where I've hyper-isolated and withdrawn from all friends, and lot of life changes that have come with huge, fundamental shifts in identity and sense of self.
I can't work out whether it's all just one big cluster-f*ck of things that negatively impact friendship, or whether a large part of it is related to the effects of the pandemic.
I've always been a recluse, always been an introvert, always been very happy to spend time by myself, never get bored because there's endless books to read and projects to work on... And the whole lockdown and social distancing phase seems to have been a real boost to introverts that their way of living life was this huge skillset and suddenly they were the ones who were great at life skills, where previously it was the extroverts that seemed to thrive.
I dunno. Friendship is such a confusing mess to me atm. I feel at middle age, I'm also undergoing a change of what friendship even means to me.
ETA: I don't even know what I would theoretically like to experience in a friendship as I head into the second half of my life... I used to know what I aspired to in a friendship, but as I've left my childhood, teens, 20s, 30s and now 40s behind... I'm not even sure what I would theoretically wish for in a friendship... I'm not sure what to search for and invest in...
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