2 Simple Ways to Get Over Your Pandemic Social Awkwardness

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“We’re all socially awkward now,” proclaims The New York Times today. Funny you should mention it, The New York Times, because we at Forge have been socially awkward for months now. (Some of us, years even!)

Back in July, Allie Volpe wrote about not only why conversations feel more weird and difficult than usual, but how to mitigate the kind of weirdness that results when you say, “Thank welcome! I mean, welcome you!” for the third time in a single conversation.

Volpe offers a two-step approach:

1. Slow down your socializing by getting outside your own head and being more observant than usual.
2. Use the time when you would’ve been talking about yourself to focus on the needs of other people. “Practice empathy and grace,” Volpe writes. “Just aim to be a good friend and a kind human. The rest will come back to you eventually.”

It’s a social exercise that works, pandemic or no pandemic.