It's an extreme but a dangerous permanent extreme. It's not like the risk of riding a bike and breaking your leg. Legs heal.vYour reputation doesn't, especially if your hobby or career requires an online presence.
Twitter aside, there is a general post COVID feeling of "coldness" out there in my anecdotal experience. It's kinda always been that way given me being in a big city (or at least, within driving distance of one), but even small talk seems to have diminished these days. Forget women, people in general just seem less interested to wave hello unless you're at a very specific function.
Ha, I haven't dated a woman for 8 years but maybe there is some wisdom here. It can be so hard to wrangle friends together for some casual meetups even if I'm happy to pay for it. It's usually not too bad once we eventually set a date, but if you don't reach out they almost never will. Like, we're talking maybe your most active friend will reach out for a birthday party or outing once every 6 months, pre-COVID. Many just will never reach out period.
The upside of all that is that most men don't usually take it personally. Like, I can throw out a text to someone I haven't seen since college in another state and we chat like old times (you know, minus the 5 years of catching up). So it's not like they ignore people on purpose. I guess life is just busy.
I have no clue how to meet truly NEW freinds though. Meetups are so flaky and a lot of my tech/gaming circle is probably inside anyway. At best I met some closely connected friends that were ex-coworkers I never talked to.
It’s kind of annoying I’m better friends with the moms of my kids friends than I am the dads. The dads want nothing to do with other dads but the moms are friendly and we chat way more. Even the dads that should be a great friend match we just never seem to make time for each other.
All my male friends are either from college or work, and like you said they tend to forget you if you don’t follow up.
Twitter aside, there is a general post COVID feeling of "coldness" out there in my anecdotal experience. It's kinda always been that way given me being in a big city (or at least, within driving distance of one), but even small talk seems to have diminished these days. Forget women, people in general just seem less interested to wave hello unless you're at a very specific function.