I'm scared of posting too many details for fear of self doxing. But I am that guy who N95s indoors everywhere. I never unmask except in front of my partner, who also is careful. I put HEPA filters in my classroom. I also avoid unnecessary indoor activities, like cinemas, gyms and indoor sports. If there's an interesting event but there's no ventilation and no one is masking, I'll give it a pass.
There's been some positives. I'm way more self confident than I used to be, knowing deeply how shitty and ignorant the average normie is. I used to always second guess myself, and now I don't. I also spend way less money, as I don't dine nor holiday. COVID pushed me far into tankie territory, and opened my mind into better understating patriarchy and white supremacy.
Also ya, I don't get sick ever.
However, I'm such a different person today. I'm not the sweet chatty person I was in 2019. I had an almost femme twang in my voice back then, and now I'm just a ragged pissed off uncle.
One huge disadvantage is that I'm such a media consuming person. Pre covid, I'd avoid TV and games. Now it's all I do. I've become the kind of person that needs someone on in order to eat or sleep. I used to fucking hate these people, and now I've become that person.
The other huge problem is that my work productivity is way lower. I used to finish everything up in a coffee shop, now obviously I can't do that. I can definitely do more in my job and in my org. I regret that I've become, honestly, maybe a bit lazy.
This shit has more or less completely broken my brain tbh, im a shell of a human being dragging myself from day to day
and now I'm just a ragged pissed off uncle.
Dat me fr fr.
I'd already been cultivating an internal rage because of some life stuff leading up to 2020, but this whole 'everyone else is living in alternate reality where pandemics and genocides don't exist' thing has given me an almost non-stop internal dialogue of rage or sorrow. I used to volunteer with a children's charity, was often called a baby whisperer, and fun uncle was like 90% of my personality. Now I'm an angry old man constantly trying to remind myself that it's not them who has no concern for my health and safety, but the capitalists' culture they've fallen victim to. But hell if that works half the time.My personality changed after becoming disabled. It’s a weird thing to go through.
COVID "lockdowns" let me accept I fucking hate leaving the house. All the normies telling me to "get outside" really just meant "go spend money". I go out and bike and I love that, but I don't go out to eat at restaurants anymore. I've gotten good enough at cooking at home anyway and the prices of everything is stupid so fuck it. Thankfully have one IRL friend who comes over every couple weeks to hang out for like 10+ hours and that's all I need for socializing, at least as a minimum.
I definitely feel similarly at times, but also, the pandemic and self quarantining has made me realize that my social anxiety was always bad, but I ignored it and powered through because that’s what was expected of me. The fact that COVID gave me a reason to take a break from in person commitments was kind of great for helping my understanding myself.
That said, my ability to keep in touch with people has been hampered a bit. I’m comfortable in my bubble and rarely even think to venture out of it anymore. This causes a bit a fallout with friends that I used to see every couple days and hang out doing nothing because we could. So I see the negatives as well
Solidarity! I ended up in the same spot with covid, but for me this also included stopping news reading, removing my big socials and turning my attention to my immeadeate circle and reading etc. I look at the national news maybe once a month or so now and that alone is typically enough to enrage me in some way.
This was not a simple thing to get to by no means, but it has been so worth it.
In about 2021-22 when the whole vax and relax was going on I noticed myself slipping into a misanthropic rage that forced me to investigate things more. After that I really started to start to try and understand why these anti-vaxxers exist, why I feel the way I feel and this plus a million other similar things started to dismantle some of the taken for granted stuff in my head that was leading me into a dark place.
What helped was realizing that the point of it all (news, clickbait) is to enrage us, to sow helplesness and to sow despair and discord. I realized it does not matter one bit if I don't know what some politician did or said on a given day and that what I think about it also matters very little. Surprisingly a very neolib book about mediated reality helped me get there.
Now I get my news from the megathread here and partially from mastodon where the most relevant stuff tends to seep in just fine. I am pretty sure that I am now better versed in global affairs than I ever was before. I am seeing some actual nuance and long form discussions about the things. I also try to learn the histories and circumstances of things that happen better by reading books about them. None of this I feel is really possible with the fast paced news machine and I think it is a feature, not a bug.
The pandemic also made me lean into my partner a lot more. We hike and cuddle and watch old Star Trek in our freetime. It made our tiny family a lot stronger, because we were always on the same page about this stuff.
I also started to study again and decided to start working in the social sector after covid took my previous work.
So for me the pandemic kind of broke me free from my alienation. But for that, a lot of things happened like getting rid of my body related performative activities, realizing I am audhd and actively choosing something different.
I embrace the things I used to feel some weird shame for like liking being at home, disliking family gatherings and mandatory celebrations, being proud of my ability to change and care, enjoying reading and learning.
So I am also a completely different person today than I used to be.
My brother just complained to me how I can't take a joke anymore when he made some joke about our shitty times and I did not find it funny. I just told him that I am done masking this for him or anyone when I have in fact never found this suffering funny, but have engaged in this circus where it is expected of you to always just go "this is fine, lol" and carry on.
Yeah the screen addiction has gotten a lot worse for me too.
I kind of get a misanthropic glee from skipping some major social events like "heh heh all following the crowd
" even tho I'm just at home being a nerd 
I still attend some concerts but I have trouble getting immersed now, it used to be the threat of the venue getting shot up, now it's like "which is more likely to kill me, a shooting spree or covid?"
feel u comrade
100% in the same boat, but I've always consumed too much media too. I think that whole part of not spending any money is a huge upside though. In my case I'm not working yet but it does add some considerable friction to the process of trying to get hired, and I can't stop thinking about how much easier life would be if I "went back to normal" (well, easier until I have permanent organ damage from catching COVID).
The part that hurts the most is how many social relations I've missed out on from being the only one who's still always inside. I probably could've met a lot of awesome people in the last 3 years.
Tbh I'm pretty lucky that I'm already in my forties. I don't need any new relationships, and I had a steady job before covid hit. I do worry about applying with my mask, tho.
I can't say it enough, the young are getting the worst end of everything now 😔
As someone who is much younger than most of the people in this thread, I am in hell. Its been more than a year since I had friends, and I have no real hope for relationships.
I'd resigned myself to staying single for a few years, but we're on the 6th year and I'd really like some irl friends that get what's going on. I joined a still coviding group on fb, but I'm so burnt out on people that I can't get myself to get involved. Doesn't help that since I'm in florida a big chunk of conversations in the group talk about how to safely go to theme parks. 😬
I joined a still coviding group on fb
Sorry I need to whinge that the admin of that group, Cat, banned me for sheer liberalism. She went to a bunch of private posh schools, so for sure she's part of the bourgeoisie.
Not that you can't meet friends there, but ffs the leaders are shitbags.
Sorry comrade. If you were here, I'd let you crash here for free for a month.
Dang, sorry to hear that. There's a bunch of groups out there, including local. But yeah, it's facebooks so.🤷
I appreciate the thought.
Yeah, I’m closer to 40 than 30 now and married to someone who sees the world pretty similarly to how I do. We are both indoor cats and fine with it, but younger generations who haven’t been able to have the same experiences in their 20s that I did are losing out for sure.
If it helps most people I know in Healthcare get the shots but don't mask. We were all mostly broken the other way. We saw how hard everyone worked to not do the right thing and just died inside. We have all given up if we die we die
