Tips on Reentering the World

It has been a while. We’re very rusty.

This week, I am going to a party. I do not know if it will be a good party or a bad party, and, if I’m being honest, it does not particularly matter. It’s really less a party than Starter Social Event, a slight tiptoe back into the world as we once knew it, way back when, way back Before.

Do you remember the last party you went to? I am not sure myself. It was probably a 2019 holiday party, and I was probably dreading it. Another holiday party? Why, I’m so busy! Who has time for all these parties? There were so many people to see, and to talk to, and be awkward around, and cover the same topics: Kids, politics, sports, how’s your mother, good to see you, hey, what was that guy’s name again? We complained about having to go to parties until suddenly, dramatically, we stopped.

We’re all about to come back, though. This summer, in the United States at least, promises to be the re-emergence, millions of vaccinated Americans (and also some non-vaccinated, unfortunately) heading back out into polite society. All the stuff you haven’t been able to do for more than a year? You’re going to be able to do almost all of it this summer. You are about to see other humans again.

It’s going to be weird at first. You’re going to be bad at it. I’m going to be bad at this…