Is the coronavirus outbreak turning me into an extrovert?
Three nights ago, as I was flossing, I felt the sharp edge of something. One of my front teeth had cracked slightly, and I was rolling the bit that broke off with my tongue. Luckily, there was no pain. In the morning, I called my dentist; the office had been closed since 14 March.
“It could be stress,” she said. “I would never tell you this under normal circumstances. Use a nail file.”
As I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, diligently filing off my tooth, I realized I’d never felt closer to my dentist (“You’ve done a great job!” she texted afterwards. “Proud of you!”) and to all the other people with whom I’ve developed a small connection since we’d gone into lockdown in Los Angeles.
There was the man who stepped over the side railing and into a busy street to let me pass, indicating that there was someone walking around the corner. There was a young woman at Target who led me on a scavenger hunt around the store towards a half-hidden double roll of paper towels. I am talking to and smiling at more people than ever before – while keeping six feet apart.
This is strange, because I am a confirmed introvert. I know I’m lucky; the stay-at-home orders are much easier for me than for my extroverted friends and colleagues. Because I’ve been working from home for the past six years, my on-Zoom connections have carried over smoothly into the “safer at home” reality. Like everyone else, I’ve quickly and seamlessly added a few more: virtual gym classes with live instructors, bicoastal book club happy hours; even French lessons with surprise guests from Paris. My day-to-day life doesn’t feel empty of people, nor does it feel overwhelmed by them.
Am I turning into an extrovert? Or is it because our emerging ways of communicating with one another are my socializing sweet spot, and therefore not nearly as draining? A few minutes talking to a neighbor across the street at a safe distance; 45 minutes on Zoom with the option of turning off the camera (at the exact moment when all that virtual togetherness starts feeling a bit much, something I could never do at a live event); a well-timed, 15-minute phone call with a still-annoying relative.
“I’ll say that as a person who considers myself an ‘ambivert’, I don’t mind all this staying in, because it had given me new options to connect with people,” a friend from Australia told me. “I do notice that if I have a day with no contact with anyone outside of my family, I feel it. So I’m pushing myself to connect with others via Skype and Zoom and WhatsApp and even the phone.” (Since Covid-19, we have been checking in weekly on WhatsApp video.)
“I actually answer my phone now,” another friend told me.
Day by day, I am reinventing how I communicate, both with people I know and those I don’t. It’s exhilarating because there is no pressure; pre-coronavirus rules and conventions don’t apply. I don’t have to plan what I say or when I text. I call people I used to text (my phone usage is way up), and FaceTime people I used to email. I drop into people’s virtual spaces unannounced, the way my mom used to ring a neighbor’s doorbell and go in for a chat. Sometimes, I text my downstairs neighbor a Covid-19 meme late at night. (I kept my promise, please keep your distance. Don’t cry for me, Quarantina.) She texts one right back. (Like a good neighbor, stay over there.) So far, no one has complained.
With the expectation around perfectly framed and timed communication gone in the space of a week, everyone around me seems neither an introvert nor an extrovert. We’re all wearing yoga pants. We are all just human and vulnerable.
“I was crossing my fingers all night for you,” my dentist texted the next day. “As soon as we open, we’ll add to the tooth with bonding material.” Until then, I’ve got my nail file. And my new array of communication tools.
Anya Grottel-Brown is vice-president of communications for Teach Plus, an education non-profit. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, teenage son and a cat named Baguette