Anxiety Aunt: Help! Why don’t I feel like socialising any more?

Dear Aunty,

I used to be such a social person but in the past six months or so, I have found myself backing out of social events and baulking at the idea of catching up with friends. At first I put it down to winter blues and the fact I usually tend to hibernate over winter but the nice weather is here and I am still not inclined to put on my party shoes or say yes to lunch or dinner invitations. Saying no is proving difficult at this time of year when the pressure is on to attend numerous end of year parties and with everyone keen to fit in a catch-up “before Christmas” but I have neither the energy or the inclination to agree. Do you think this is something I will snap out of? I am in my early 50s so there’s plenty of life left in the old dog yet, just no enthusiasm!

Yours, Anti-social

Dear Anti-social,

After more years than One cares to reveal spent on this planet, your Aunt has come to the realisation that life is a bit like a pendulum. It swings up, it swings down, then swings up again at the other side. But most of the time is spent lolling around in the middle.

One believes that learning to enjoy being in that middle ground, where nothing much is happening and life is moving at a bit of a slower pace, is the secret to finding contentment.

Now, that is not to say that your Aunt doesn’t enjoy the highs of life. After all, One spent years on the knife’s edge living out of a suitcase as a impoverished, semi-permanently drunk and frequently promiscuous cancan dancer. Was it fun at the time? Hell yes. Would One want to do it all over again? Again yes. But at this stage in life? Absolutely not.

Right now, the closest your Aunt gets to a wild night out is watching a David Attenborough documentary at the home of old Bert Saunders from next door.

Having said that, Bert has been trying to distil his own whisky recently and during a tasting session he hosted with Merv, Mavis and Maudie from the bowling club, things did get a little frisky. One would like to make a disclaimer here because, despite being of Scottish origin, One has no taste for a wee dram, as One’s family put it.

But saying no to Bert is like trying to tell a four-year-old they cannot have an ice cream — it usually ends in tears or tantrums or both. For instance, the other week, your Aunt said One wasn’t interested in hearing the finer details about how Bert woke up during his recent colonoscopy and he stomped home in a huff.

So, like One was saying, One got embroiled in a whisky tasting session and One is not sure what Bert put in that whisky, but let’s just say it is somewhat of a blessing that most of us remember very little from that evening.

But moving on. It could well be just where you are at in life, Anti-social. Sometimes our minds or our bodies try to tell us to take it easy. A lot of us aren’t good at listening but maybe you are. Oftentimes you just need a bit of a breather from socialising/life/people. Your Aunt cannot recall when things ever felt this busy or frantic so One understands how a lot of people are suffering from fatigue or burnout.

The information overload and constant stimulus from our phones and everything else, certainly doesn’t help matters. And come this time of year, a lot of us are feeling especially exhausted.

So, One is going to say to you, that you shouldn’t beat yourself up for feeling like you want to take things easy and cut back on socialising. But, One also thinks it never hurts, when you are not feeling quite like yourself, to get a bit of a once over at the GP, just to make sure there isn’t more going on.

However, that is simply a precaution and as One says, you should feel no guilt or anxiety about opting for an evening on the couch rather than a night swilling chardonnay and twerking on the dancefloor.

We all need to recharge our batteries once in a while, my dear. Even reformed party queens like your dear old Aunt.

Be well and take life at your own pace. All the best.