I genuinely don’t understand how people see social interaction as something beautiful or natural. To me it feels like pure obligation.
Even at work you are not really yourself. You are adjusting how you speak, how you act, and how you respond just to fit the role, satisfy your employer, and keep things smooth with colleagues. That constant switching can be exhausting.
Outside of work it does not feel that different. Conversations, replying, small talk, making plans, it can all feel more like maintenance than real connection.
And yeah, I can agree that most people are not fully themselves in these situations. Everyone is performing to some extent depending on the setting. The difference is some people find it normal while others find it draining.
Sometimes it feels like people are not actually enjoying it as much as they say, they are just used to it being the default way to live.
Maybe I am missing something but I do not see the beautiful part everyone talks about.
I think a LOT of people require external validation to feel good about themselves. Its why we see places like Facebook and Reddit fracture into echo chambers, and why humans separate themselves into social groups based on similarities. Groups then can outcast the “others” which creates a social floor. As long as you’re within Group, you know you aren’t as bad as those Others over there. At the same time, the people within Group build each other uo and reinforce their common behaviors. Dissimilar behaviors within the group leads to either note fracturing within the group, or leads to people changing their behaviors and homogenizing.
When I was last in a band, I noticed the pattern. The 3 of us would each write things on our own that sounded unique, like our individual selves. When we brought the pieces together, or wrote songs together, the result was bland and generic stuff. All of our respective rough edges that made us interesting were rubbed smooth to make room for each other. And the songs that seemed to do the best with crowds were the smoothest ones (not that we had a ton of success- we played a handful of gigs before the pandemic hit and they ended up moving away).
I’ve noticed a lot lately that introverts in media are often portrayed as broken. Evangelion is one of my favorite anime, but its guilty of this. Shinji is often used in memes and internet culture to represent an introvert, but pretty much every scene where we see him alone he is miserable and craving some external validation. When I’m alone I usually just feel at peace.
I think a lot of people fear themselves, their own thoughts. They consider “being in your own head” a bad thing, like your own thoughts are scary.
My older sister is autistic and we were recently talking about traveling. She said that she prefers to travel alone so she can just wander around a new city at her own pace without having to consider the needs of her husband or children or friends kr anyone else, and I related to that a lot. I may also be autistic- I’m waiting for my assessment results lol.