while studying for entrance exams, i cut off most social interaction – no facebook, almost no internet social interaction, and limited real life social interaction. i went to tkd sporadically and most people in lab were on vacation, so this was fairly easy. i made exceptions for the americans who were only around for a couple of months, and who left days before entrance exams. honestly, that probably kept me sane, even if i sacrificed some productivity.
that said, now that i’m stepping back into normal life, i have a fair amount of social obligations to catch up on. there’s emails to respond to, socializing on facebook to do, and i have no desire to do any of it.
socializing in real life is no problem, because i can just show up to lab or tkd and socializing happens naturally. (well, relatively speaking. there’s only a few people who currently exist in real life who i can socialize with easily. but it’s not premeditated socializing, the type i especially fail at.)
on the other hand, when someone sends me an email, usually it’s something that requires thought, so i set it aside until i have time to put sufficient effort into replying. as time goes by, though, the desire to respond decreases, and it becomes more and more awkward to send a reply, usually weeks/months after the original message was sent.
basically, i feel this huge pressure to be social, something that probably shouldn’t cause all that much pressure in the first place.
