Still Stuck in 2020!

The COVID-19 pandemic hit us exactly four years ago, but mentally, I still feel stuck there. Can a pandemic completely change your personality? I was a recent high school graduate when the pandemic struck the world brutally. Most of my university days were spent online, leading to very few interactions with my peers.

During the first year and a half of my college days, I had minimal friends and barely did anything fun. We only met once at ‘Clubhouse’, the app that was popular during that time, and apart from that, we attended online classes monotonously and reminded each other about attendance, when they were not present at the time of the call. No one made much effort to befriend others or try to know each other, which was tough. Except for one or two, I rarely talked to anyone during online classes.

This took a toll when we transitioned to offline classes from online mode. None of us were willing to introduce ourselves and make a first move to be friends with others, and everyone seemed eccentric and unwilling to make new friends. Few hostellers befriended their roommates, while day scholars like me struggled to make good acquaintances.

I hated going to college initially because partially, my college was very much distance from my home, and I had to take two buses daily to get there the other one was having no friends made the classes unbearable.

Even after a few days, I found no one matching the same vibe as me, finally met someone but, someone who was often absent from classes, late to classes, or canceling plans, or someone I later hated so much for making me feel super lonely and frustrated.

Things worsened during the placement season as everyone focused on their careers and ignored each other. Looking back, I have a few good memories of college. Our time was marked by a lack of fun activities and no industrial visits since we were already seniors when we started offline classes.

Now, I find it irritating to go out and meet people. Making new friends feels daunting, and I miss the convenience of online interactions where you can mute or unmute yourself, show or hide your face, and leave or join meetings at any time. In the real world, you have to be conscious 24/7. Your facial expressions, body language, and opinions always matter. You have to talk to people face-to-face, listen to their rants, and make plans for tea breaks during office hours. You can’t just scroll Instagram when frustrated; you have to interact with people.

So, I feel super struck by the year 2020 and want my life to be like it. It was lonely back then, when I stayed home alone but that is not as lonely as being around people and still being lonely. In college, I was surrounded by people but still found myself so lonely.