When quarantine started, people across the world found themselves separated from their social peers, only capable to connect with others through a screen. This led to the heavy feeling of loneliness from the literal social distance people had to observe for their own safety.
January 2021 came, and I realized that due to the drainage of my social battery, the last time I had talked to my friends was at least 3 months before the holiday season.
As a trend follower, I got intrigued with Discord, and almost everybody I knew was sending me invites to their “personal servers;” with that being said, I mustered up all the sociability I had left and created a small server of my own and sent the invite link to my closest friends, and those whom I wanted to reconnect with.
And well… two words to describe it was: chaotic good.
Since I went to different schools for both Junior and Senior High School, plus, the fact that I opted for a school located in a whole other region for college, it was safe to say that I had my fair share of mingling between different friendship circles; and all their bridges connected through me.
I used my Discord server mainly to schedule hangouts with my friends that were mostly watching parties and virtual game nights, but after a while, I mainly did my own thing which was streaming my gameplay of Stardew Valley.
There, my friends from literally all over the world stop by to say hi and watch me play my farm game, and inevitably, my friends met my other friends. It was a lot, but it was also really nice.
My friends from college met my high school friends and they bonded over K-pop, an interest I personally lacked knowledge of, so it was nice to see them have someone to talk to for that, love even started brewing within my channels, and all-round, my friends and I didn’t feel alone anymore.
The lockdown has separated us from our usual peers and social interactions, but we are all far from being disconnected. It only takes a few clicks on a keyboard to check up on that person you sincerely want to reconnect with, and with all of the time in the world given to us now, why can’t you?
(We must still note, however that being socially burnout is real, and we must respect the boundaries others have set for themselves, and that we ourselves must also recognize. Everything and anything can be done in due time, at your own paces.)
━━ Art By Metroscene Mag
