IS COVID MAKING YOU SOCIALLY AWKWARD?

If lockdown has made you embrace your inner wallflower, it turns out you’re not alone

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As the new year gets underway, it’s a time of optimism and hope as our lives continue their slow transition back to “normal”. But after a year of lockdowns, Zoom meetings and restricted gatherings, going out and socialising is turning out to be a little more awkward for some of us than expected.

IS THIS NORMAL? Dr Jodi Richardson, a leading researcher, educator and the author of Anxious Mums, says it’s totally normal to feel this way. “It’s natural, because our social skills are like any skills that require practice,” she explains.

“We don’t realise how skilled we are at it until we take a break,” she adds. “To listen and to formulate a response that’s in keeping with the conversation, we have to get the timing right, to know when to talk and when not to. We read body language, we need to decide whether or not somebody requires empathy, or whether or not they’re looking for our contribution to solving a problem.

“So the skills that we use socially are complex. If we haven’t used them for a while, they’re bound to be a little bit rusty.”

SOCIAL ANXIETY AND COVID-19