Social Exhaustion

Sometimes, I’m too tired to give my cat the 3 hours of conversation and cuddling she deserves. I want to be able to sit with her and talk about how soft she is and how small her wittle footsie wootsies are, but I’m tired so her footsies go unfawned over. The same goes for talking to people, including some of my favorite people, I’d really like to stay and chat, but there’s whiskey and Netflix at home, and of those things, only some of them are going to make me feel like a person again.

I’m pretty introverted. Given the choice, I’d pick a dark room with my SO, a laptop and our cat over a loud party with questionable cat attendance. I’ve become more extroverted in the last year, but that just means I can have fun and spend a little more time with people before I need to return to my cave and plug myself in to recharge. I see it kind of like freediving. I can hold my breath longer and explore more of the terrifying ocean than I ever have before, but I don’t have a scuba tank, so there is always a countdown before I have to go.

For the last week, my job has been to work with the other instructors to train the new flock of grad students so they won’t scar their students once they’re released upon a classroom. These have been 7-8 hour days working. This wouldn’t be bad at all if not for the fact that it’s 7-8 hours of constant talking, constant team building and icebreakers and activities designed to get us all talking to each other so they can know their peers and drain the life from their mentors. Sometimes, they even go with me to lunch.

I’ve thought of getting on my bike and seeing how far into the woods I could make it. If there weren’t many bumps, probably about 6 miles. Nobody would be able to find me and ask me two truths and a lie there.

I’m not going to run away to the woods. I have to clarify that in case someone I work with reads this. I genuinely like this part of my job, and I’m having a good time getting to know all these new people. I also enjoy dancing, and like talking to new people, I’m not very good at it. Also like talking to new people, if someone had me dance for 8 hours, I’d come home and try to move as a-rhythmically as possible. I’d stop the music, my hips would lie, there would be nothing in the air tonight, Fernando.

It has only been a week of this and I’m tired. After the first day, I was pleasantly exhausted. Similar to that feeling after a good workout except FAQ sessions aren’t going to make me lose weight unless I tear out a substantial amount of hair. This exhaustion is going to continue, probably get worse, and the introverted soul within me will continue to shriek as more people ask me about my syllabus and how I got the picture of my cat in there and should they have a picture of an animal and what do I do about students who don’t laugh at my jokes and how often do I remind them of their attendance and how do I take attendance again and can students write about this topic, what about this one, surely not this one… I’m going to die.

I’m tired.

These next two weeks are going to be a lot. I’ve sort of grown out of my antisocial curmudgeon, but I might fall back into that thinking just to get through this without a ringing in my ears every time someone makes eye contact with me.

I’ll probably complain more, and I’m sorry I haven’t been as quick to reply to comments. I love writing here and talking to you all, and then there are days when I finish writing and I just want to lie back down, forget there are other people in the world, and wait for that illusion to be shattered.