Decades ago, the thought of being anti-social was hardly even a thought - downright unacceptable to the masses. There were certain obligations and standards to be held to by society. Back in the days of Suzie-homemaker wives, husbands wearing suits to the office and children having a different set of evening wear to play outside in, being anti-social simply wasn't "the thing". Men would wake up, eat the breakfast their wives created for them, in the suits their wives pressed for them and be social with their family they provided for. They would be polite to anyone they ran into on the way to the office, be politely social at the office, and then head home to change for the dinner party they were hosting at their homes. Wives would rise even earlier, make the breakfast and press the suits aforementioned, get the children up and running, be polite and social with their family, send everyone off, receive a phone call from a friend, make coffee and cake and be social with their friend (in between incredulous housework and dinner party preparation) and then send off their friend in enough time to accept their family back and change for the shindig. Children would be expected to be polite with their family, their friends as they awaited the bus/made their way to school, at school, and then be polite (or quiet, depending) at the do.
Of course this would not be every day, but this kind of activity would certainly take up the better part of their existence.
The existence that would surely give any one of us a heart attack.
Now, it is much more acceptable - run of the mill, even - to be anti-social. It has become the norm. Granted, I think the lifestyle of the "Leave it to Beaver" days was much too much to expect of a person (*has breakdown from cake not coming out properly*), however I think we have managed to eek into the opposing extreme. Now we are not social with our families. We barely talk to them, for the most part. We make our way to wherever we need to be (work/school) by ourselves, ignoring everyone as much as humanly possible, and once we get to, say, work, we pretty much keep to ourselves. In fact, the majority of conversation I have at one of my jobs is about how awful is it to try and be social. Anxiety-ridden kittens confess their woes to me about their latest attempt thereof. They would much rather just stay in and check their social media accounts (HA. The irony), go online and join the anonymous as they fight pretend wars and battle strange enemies.
Now I would be lying if I said that staying in did not have its appeal; there are so many days where I am exhausted from socializing at work and cannot wait to have a nice, relaxed day/night at home. Reading a book. Writing in the ol' blog. Even watching the youtubes. On the line. Even so, if the right person connects with me, I will drop what I am doing to go be around them. And talk. Watch some things. Just be around them. (This list is short, but it does exist.) But to not ever prefer conversation over DMs / likes / the reading of other peoples' business? This seems insane to me. I feel as though, in order to have this happen to me, I would have to simply not have met anyone who I like to be around. Maybe that's it; maybe no one has met the right friend/group of friends and connected with them. Maybe it's some kind of catch-22 scenario where they haven't met the friends because they've all locked themselves away on social media. Others have made it quite clear that I am unusual for my age/kind/generation, and I do try to subscribe to "to each their own", but I still will say that it all seems a little sad. Who knows, maybe not having friends you actually hang out with is the way to a better life. Maybe this generation actually has it right, after so many years of unreasonable expectations. But I think being social (in the right ways and settings) is something not to be missed.
No comments:
Post a Comment