I had a dream last night that I was at a dinner table, meeting new people. When I woke up, I felt the most intense relief. When you're doing it all the time, you don't notice how exhausting meeting new people is, but now, having seen no one for weeks, the prospect seems daunting - being assessed, hoping to be liked, trying to gauge whether these people will become friends or the opposite, (or whether this will be a meaningless encounter - I suppose I spent too many years going to diplomatic social events, which is why this last strikes me as the most likely result of new interactions, which is not very optimistic of me, I admit).
Anyway, until I woke up from that dream, I hadn't realised how much of a strain social life, except with those you know and love already, actually is, at least for me, a stupidly anxious person.
And speaking of anxiety, since lockdown I've been deprived of my usual evening panic. It went as follows: I'd get into bed, pick up my book and begin to read and then fear about where my wallet was would creep into my head. I would try to tell myself that, wherever it might be, it could wait until the morning, but in the end I always had to jump up and rush off round the house to check that I hadn't left it on the counter of a shop or on the seat in a tram somewhere.
As I don't go out any more, this path of anxiety is now firmly closed. But never mind - my inventive brain has come up with a perfect substitute: is the freezer, packed with food so that we don't have to go shopping and risk certain death from the virus, closed properly? Cue jumping up and all the rest of it. If you are an anxious idiot, you never let yourself off the hook.
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