Too Many People

[Phoebe]

Do y'all ever have days where you just can't understand how you're going to have to go out and see a lot of other people and talk to and deal with them? I assume we have a lot of introverted types here. I am in full extrovert mode all the time in the office. Have to be. It requires enormous amounts of energy and I find that today, I'm just unable to face the prospect of having to go out among people. Many people are very good but other people have gone mad and are making the world a terrible, violent, and cruel place, even more than it was before. More to the point, people feel the need to do their jobs in inherently adversarial ways. Second-wave feminism was a lot smarter than we give it credit for these days. There were a bunch of people trying to come up with a vision of a Kyler and gentler and more productive way of functioning. Typo is autocorrect and it stays for the obvious reason. Frankly I think it's true: the second-wave feminists would have been pretty happy with how Kyle deals with people.

Anyway, I'd like to know what your strategies are for getting up and putting on your game face in situations where you need to go hide alone in a dark cave. I feel like a lot of the people around me have lost all of their marbles. One of the very powerful people was very angry for reasons that seemed a bit over-exaggerated to me. Then someone else got fired. I realize that a lot of these things are driven by feeling, by frustrations others don't understand, and when you're dealing with people you're not just dealing with rational robots or very mild-mannered friendly non robots, but you're embroiled in some day-to-day Nietzschean struggle that you never wanted to be part of. Sigh.

I am not able to stay in bed and now I'm forced to leave it. Goodbye kind bed.

[Kyle]

So I don't have a problem with this because I'm extroverted to a fault-- I go crazy if I'm alone. That being said, dealing with the crazies and the assholes still takes its toll. My new strategy is to try to be more accepting of people I disagree with when I recognize that the disagreement is nonconsequential (which it almost always is). This makes me much happier throughout the day.

[akiva]

I wish I had an answer. My inability to put on my game face is a major reason that I'm so bad at my job.

[Iantha]

So I'm kind of a happy medium between Kyle and Phoebe; I like to socialize and it doesn't tire me out, but I don't need it and have an easy time just being alone. However, I live with two people who have anxiety and one with PTSD. This makes socializing pretty difficult for them, and there are days where it is VERY difficult to get out of bed and function. As such, we've worked pretty hard as a family to come up with coping mechanisms and ways to make home as replenishing as possible so that they can get up and face the world.

1) We keep a pretty low-key, quiet house. Turkish is basically an only child who is into into computer gaming, pottery, and painting. She doesn't like to invite large numbers of kids over (or even small groups very often) so when Paul and Turkish get home, they can just relax and not have to worry about entertaining or being "on".

2) We make a point to debrief when we have dinner. We make sure everyone has time to decompress and then talk about how their day went. It gives them a couple of hours to process and chill between the time they get home and when dinner is ready, and then they can get whatever they want to off of their chest.

3) On our days off, we try really hard to reserve one of those days to do absolutely no errands. If we decide to leave the house, fine. But if we don't we don't and there's no pressure.

This gets exponentially more difficult as more children are added, but it's what works for us.

[mimekiller]

I try to be aware of my balance of my social/personal life and plan my week out accordingly that I know won't have me looking at another being just wishing them into the cornfield so I can sip fine intoxicating liqueurs and read in peace.