Left after work drinks at half seven having genuinely enjoyed it, and then sat in the car for ten minutes unable to face driving. Needed about two hours of silence at home before I felt like myself. This is not anxiety as far as I can tell, I was not dreading it and I was not embarrassed afterwards. It just costs me something enormous and nobody I have mentioned it to seems to recognise the description.
It gets cheaper with familiarity, not with effort. The same thirty minutes with people you have known for five years costs almost nothing, because there is no monitoring to do. So if you want it to hurt less, the lever is fewer, more repeated groups rather than more practice at socialising in general.
This matched my experience. I went to more events for a year and it did not get easier. I went to the same event repeatedly and it did.
Unglamorous checklist before you conclude anything about your personality: had you eaten, had you had water, how much noise was in the room, and how long had you been at work first. Loud rooms in particular are physically tiring because you are decoding speech through noise for an hour straight. That said, if the flattening is getting worse over time, or you are needing the two hours after any interaction at all, that is worth mentioning to a doctor rather than a forum. This is just what worked for me.
Ear plugs. The filtered kind musicians use, not foam. Sounds absurd and it took a bar evening from unbearable to fine.
@circadian_cass · 3w ago · 3 replies
Very normal, and the useful framing is that the cost is monitoring, not talking.
In a group you are tracking who is speaking, who has been left out, whether your last sentence landed, how loud the room is, when to come in. That is a background process running the whole time, and it does not switch off just because you are having fun. Which is why enjoying it and being flattened by it are completely compatible.
Things that measurably cut the cost for me: arrive twenty minutes early while it is quiet and there are four people instead of forty, because you get folded into the room instead of joining it. Find the edges, doorways and kitchens, and talk one to one. Decide in advance when you are leaving so you are not spending energy negotiating with yourself all evening. And plan the recovery instead of resenting it, so a quiet drive home rather than a phone call.
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@question_jar · 3w ago
Arriving early is the single best piece of advice I have ever taken about parties. Walking into six people is a different event from walking into sixty.
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@protein_pia · 3w ago
The monitoring framing fits exactly. I always thought it was the talking, but I can talk for two hours to one person and feel fine.
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