Something we noticed among me and mine, and heard whispered across the community, is that people are just lower on social spoons in general. Like community wide people just can't people. And it's not a tentative thing, it feels like a quality shift where a lower social spoon amount and faster social spoon drain then before are now permanent fixtures regardless of age or other environmental factors.
We are among those who have been social spoon drained, so we're not "immune" to this.
Our speculation of the potential reasons is a mixture of the effects of the pandemic and late stage capitalism, particularly on marginalized folks.
So that begs the question, what is to be done.
Our first idea was to treat it like a muscle and "build it back up." However, that proved to not be viable. In person socialization is obviously a no-go due to the pandemic (not that I know anyone in town anyway). And because of this quality shift nobody else is available.
Beyond that we're out of ideas. We're trying to resume our workout routine just because we need to do that for health reasons anyway (we suspended that after a brush with COVID last November and are trying to resume it now). However, that isn't exactly a universal solution even if it does work, and I'm assuming it will.
So again we circle back to the main question. What is to be done to rectify this. Even the most introverty-of the introverts (hi there) at least want to be able to handle people at times without feeling exhausted and brain-drained, and would at least like opportunities for the same even if they aren't 100% feeling up for it.
Let me know what you think of all this and what solutions you might have in mind.