People Who Need People — and the COVID-19 Pandemic

A song from the Sixties has been on my brain’s Top 40 Golden Oldie Earworm list for the last week or so:

“People,
People who need people,
Are the luckiest people in the world….”
(“People;” Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill (1964))

That started me thinking. Are people who need people lucky? Should they be lucky? Just what is luck, anyway? And for that matter, are there any people who don’t need people?

Thoroughly answering any one of those questions would take a book. A whole lot of books, more likely.

I’m trying to keep these ‘journal’ entries short, so thorough is out, superficial is in.

Human, Yes — All Alike, No

I’m not one of those folks who likes getting together with a few hundred close personal friends every other day or so.

Don’t get me wrong. I like people just fine.

But trying to have a coherent conversation with a varying number of people, while sorting other conversations into categories like ‘ignore,’ ‘engage later,’ ‘engage now’ and ‘switch to other group’ ???

That is not my idea of a good time.

And I’m certainly not someone who starts going through social withdrawal after maybe three days without at least a few hours in a crowded room.

But I’m human. We’re social critters. “Needing people” comes with the territory.

I can sympathize with folks who really do need people: people who are physically close, not ‘close’ only in a virtual sense. I’m also willing to accept that not everyone is like me. For which we should all be thankful. And that’s another topic.

That said, COVID-19 pandemic restrictions haven’t cut into my social life all that much.

Before ‘social distancing’ — a poorly-chosen phrase, and that’s yet another topic — started becoming a cliche, most of my social life was online.

It still is.

If I thought that online communities were “pretend communities” and folks weren’t real people when they connect with each other through post-industrial tech —

Well, I don’t. And I’m pretty sure that I’m a real person, even when I socialize online.

I’ve talked about that, and other seemingly-obvious stuff, before:

• “Taking to the (Digital) Streets: Advent and Social Media”
  (December 9, 2020)
• “Eucharistic Adoration and Social Distancing”
  (December 3, 2020)
• “Not Feeling ‘Information Overload’ or ‘Loss of Identity’”
  (November 6, 2020)
• “Be Not Afraid of Geekness”
  (April 6, 2019)
• “Internet Friends, Real People”
  (March 19, 2017)