Decreasing social skills due to Covid

[pinkyperkypie]

Does anyone else feel like they are loosing their ability to socialise normally due to Covid. I live alone and have been WFH since March in a job that means I usually contact colleagues by email. I'm quite introverted and happy with my own company so I'm not seeking out friends to meet up but tend to stay in touch by WhatsApp. Yesterday, I spoke to a friend and realised that instead of being kind and encouraging and open-minded, I found that I was quite judgmental about her decisions and I had little tolerance for hearing about things that didn't interest me. I actually messaged her later to apologise for being a bit of a cow, to which she replied 'don't worry about it', which suggests that it's not just in my head.

I think I'm spending so much time on my own that I'm loosing the ability to compromise, empathise, etc etc. Has anyone else had this experience or have any suggestions about how to overcome it?

Yes I feel this way too although to be fair my social skills were never that brilliant to begin with. But I think socialising is something that we all get better at the more we practice and lately few of us have had any practice. During the summer I had a good friend over who I hadn't seen for months to sit in the garden and hang out together. She basically came over, insulted my garden, gave me a hard time for not having suffered more in lockdown and left. I realised later that she had expected me to be more empathetic to her own situation of living alone during lockdown and having to self isolate. We didn't have a very nice time basically and it was particularly rubbish as we had been looking forward to spending time together for so long!