How Do You Want Your Post Covid Social Life To Be Like?
It’s no doubt that our social lives during this Covid-19 pandemic has been very different so far from the days pre-Covid. However, with more and more of the general population getting fully vaccinated hopefully by this summer, there will be a post-Covid social life for all of us again. As we get vaccines into our arms, a return to normalcy is on the horizon.
A good question for all of us then can be — how do you want your post-Covid social life to be like? Do you want your post-Covid life to simply pick up where it was left just as the pandemic hit or do you want some changes to perhaps a different social life compared to your pre-Covid days?
Believe it or not, we all have the opportunity to change our social lives for the better after this pandemic is finally done with. Of course, if you are completely satisfied with how your social life was before, you can always return to the way it was as your social circle gets vaccinated and restrictions are lifted.
For me, this pandemic will change my own future social life. I learned some things about different people during this pandemic as it really brought out the true nature of many folks. In my observation, these tough times brought out the real good in some people while in some other cases, it also unfortunately brought out the not so good in others.
While I learned that some people have hearts of gold that really shined and show that they really care about others besides themselves, I also noticed that some people just don’t seem to care about any others except themselves. Some individuals made efforts to continue communications with others the best they could whether it was through phone calls, video chats, text messages or emails all in order to help others feel less isolated during the pandemic.
At first, I also made similar efforts to make sure different people I know were not forgotten even if it was only through online methods. To me, this was a continuation of the same type of social service I have given over many years as part of being a Meetup group organizer, ie., to make people feel included.
Most people were very appreciative while some were surprisingly luke warm to the idea of being in the virtual world of social communications. But what really surprised me was that some people over the course of the first year of this pandemic, did not bother to reciprocate communications. These individuals did not even spend 30 seconds to send a text or email to see how others were doing during our isolation after my initial efforts in reaching out to them.
Everyone has been feeling the pinch of social isolation but what really jumped out is that these same people who put zero effort into reaching out to others, expected others to reach out to them. This pandemic clearly showed that some people just takers and not givers. The entire experience gave me a clearer picture of who is who in terms of what their hearts are really like.
Make Decisions To Enrich Your Post-Covid Social Life
I’ve made a decision that for my own social life, I’m going to be much more selective on who I continue my social time with. Despite what some might think given my heavy involvement in skiing and scuba diving, I do keep in touch with some folks who are neither skiers nor divers. I feel that there can be other factors besides common interests and activities that determine who I should continue to be socially connected with as well as those I should drop.
Those who have shown that they actually care about others during the pandemic will stay in my social circle. I will always make time for people who have shown that they care about how I’m doing during the pandemic. Those who made no efforts at all over the last year, ie., the takers, really do not deserve my time anymore.
I don’t think that I’m the only one who has observed these social patterns among people during the pandemic. This is where we all have the opportunity to make our social lives even better than before by keeping the people who really matter in your life and dropping those who have shown not to deserve your time. The people you decide to stay in your social circle are the ones worth keeping. Yes you may have to make some hard decisions when it comes to dropping certain people in your social life but in the end, it will be a more fulfilling one.
