COVID-19: The Social Market Is Crashing
How is Your Portfolio Standing Up? Let’s Assess
When this whole thing started, we were not in a good place relationally as a society. We were already living in a world where 80% of Americans do not feel close to anyone but family members. While 25% of people do not trust anyone with their intimate secrets, the rate of people with no close friends or family tripled between 1985 and 2004, and in 1960, 58% of people thought “most people” could be trusted; in 2008, it stood at 32%. (Statistics taken from Born For Love by Maia Szalavitz and Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D)
The Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing scenario we are in is begging an interesting social experiment. With all of the fluff of life seemingly taken from us, we are living for and finding out what is essential. I have read many articles and posts about people who are socially adapting to preserve emotional closeness while physically distancing. I have also heard from many people who are now regretting that they hadn’t reached out to family in a long time.
Here are few relevant articles about our current state of affairs that I think relate to what I am getting at in this story.
In any case, with the speed of life socially slowing down and the smoke clearing a little, we can take time to evaluate who and how we have been relationally investing, both familial and socially. We can measure the value of our investments by measuring both who we are missing and why?
Times, They Are Changing
It’s a difficult situation for us to be in when we’re not allowed just to exist socially and hide in the masses. We can no longer pretend like we fit in and act like everything’s okay. Now there’s nowhere to hide, and it’s time to examine where we have been spending our social currency and how that investment has paid off?
When we self-examine our relational portfolio we should be looking for people that we can mutually care about. That when we care about them, they also care about us, but it’s not an exchange of goods. It’s not an eye for an eye. It’s a mutually energy-conserving relationship that brings back what you put in. It is not too hard to evaluate. You can tell fairly easily by who is not calling, texting, or trying to maintain a connection. If they are not, there never was a bond in the first place. It was a persona-driven relationship that can only exist in specific settings like characters in a play. Those are fine to have, but the point is the emotional energy we banked on them.
We put a lot of energy and effort into fitting in and impressing others. We want to belong, and to do so; we sacrifice our real selves along the way. Our society as a whole is missing out on the safety and security of intimate relationships. We put effort into getting pleasure from social connections, but we put far less energy into being vulnerable and being authentic. One safe and genuine relationship is worth 1,000 nights out with people who do not matter. Relationships are where we find out about ourselves so that we can grow. It is counterproductive to engage without being authentic or “True to yourself.” Do we even want to know who we really are? This is an excellent question to ask right now as we navigate these weird social times.
So Let’s Self-Assess
With the smoke clearing, it is time to appraise the value of your relational life. It is time to identify the areas that you have neglected and to be honest about the areas where you have over-invested. Many people may find their current loneliness disheartening, but it is an opportunity to be honest, plan, and take action.
Many people are having to navigate the family relationships in a home with people they have been neglecting for years. If that is you, ask yourself:
How’s that going?
Do we expect people to just fall in line and get along?
Regarding extended family, siblings, etc. Where are they during this crisis? Are we connecting with our family in any meaningful way?
Are we realizing the consequences of not having fostered real relational bonds and comfort?
Socially, many people thought they were hiding well in a robust social life, only to find out that no one is calling anymore without a restaurant, bar, or event to attend.
Are you experiencing guilt and/or rejection because you finally see who is important to you and who is not?
Are you realizing that you have spent too much time at work and in superficial social relationships at the expense of important family and intimate friends?
You could also be realizing that you were overlooking the market in the first place and failed to invest any of your social currency? Perhaps you have spent it all just being alone and have nothing in the savings account now that you need to draw from it. Or maybe you are feeling the pain of missing people who you have grown close to over the years and are disapointed that the relationships are relagated to Facetime. This might be the healthiest evidence that you have invested well in recent years. In any case, the world is a rat race, and we can easily justify our way of running that race while things around us crash and burn, but then when they do crash and burn, we are exposed.
Now is an opportune time to see who is with you and who is not. To build on that foundation and invest. If there is no one, that’s okay; we can start to see why that is and what opportunities we missed. So ask yourself:
Who are you eager to reach out to?
Who have you neglected to get back to in recent months?
Who is and is not reaching out to you?
Who are you making the extra effort to reach out and connect with?
Who is standing with you and concerned for you?
Who are you concerned about?
These can be scary questions for some people who may have lived socially blind lives or in disconnection from their family for a long time. Self-growth and awareness can be a lonely process at first.
So now, as we examine ourselves, it is time to reset our social outlook. Who are the people that are standing next to you right now? Maybe we should invest more in those relationships. Perhaps we should take a quality, not quantity stance on relationships. Perhaps being alone is not ideal, but when we are alone do we like the company you are with?
Time To Get Real Honest
The questions above are eye openers, prompts to self-evaluate your relational portfolio in order to take personal responsibility for your quality of life. There are certainly things we can do about it. We are not stuck, but it’s going to take an honest look at who we are and what we’ve been doing for a long time in our social lives. We will need to evaluate who we’ve been pretending to be. If people are making a point to connect, maybe it’s time to double down on those individuals. To connect, we will need to take an active approach to engage in meaningful ways and to trust that those who are standing next to us as doing so because they want to, because they care. To not worry about what we don’t have and who’s not there anymore because they didn’t matter in the first place. We just lied to ourselves into believing that they did.
Relationships are not always easy in the first place. They are the venues through which all personal growth takes place. You learn a lot of information and knowledge, but life is experiential and you will always be brought to the relational “lab” to act it out for it to become real growth. Relationships are impossible to draw value from without investing vulnerably in the first place. So why do we waste time and emotional energy investing in ones that we weren’t really all that plugged into in the first place? Or why do we not seem to have any close relationships when the stuff hits the fan? These are always questions worth asking, but right now seems like an opportune time to get some accurate answers.
Maybe you feel lonely but perhaps you are the person who has been neglecting someone who matters for a long time? Perhaps they are waiting for you to reach out because they think you do not care? Let’s not let the current circumstance be our excuse. Let’s not wait until we get back to “normal.” Let’s come out of this thing, at least pointing in the right direction, and let’s stop wasting our social/emotional resources.
If you have read this far, thank you! I would love to hear your feedback, have a discussion, or debate these concepts. Let’s connect at, PsychologyToday, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or shoot me an email at [email protected].
