You Don’t Have to Feel Social to Start Socializing

it’s not self care if its comparable to decaying wood

Seen any of these in a group chat near you lately? Maybe pressed send on a few yourself?

• “Hey all, sorry, just not feeling social tonight so I’m going to miss dinner.”

• “My social battery is dead. I’ll be on the couch. Send memes.”

• “Mercury retrograde’s post shadow is happening til the 6th, so socializing is a big nope from me.”

No shade. I totally get it. Just existing can be exhausting, and even when we have the best intentions, social plans often get cut first because they often feel optional.

And sometimes canceling really is the right call. There really are times when are body/mind/spirit really does need a break, a fluffy blanket, and a few uninterrupted hours to rest and recharge. As we’ve discussed many times, there’s an art to balancing socializing while avoiding social burnout.

But there’s a difference between rest that restores you and withdrawal that leaves you feeling vaguely worse.

You may have heard this second kind called “rotting”: belly-flopping onto a soft surface, plugging in your phone, and disappearing into the endless-scroll apps.

When I do this, my eyes get heavy. My facial muscles tense. My chest feels a little hollow and vaguely achey. I ignore basic biological needs and eventually find myself inhaling corn chips at 8:30 p.m. while watching a video I do not even care about.

(An important caveat here, though: One or two nights of this is just life. But when it becomes the default, it may be worth paying attention. A persistent pattern of withdrawing from life and struggling to care for yourself can also be a sign of depression, and you deserve professional support if this is happening most days. Okay, now back to your scheduled programming!)

Through it, I’ll sometimes wistfully wish that I felt more social. Like, if I just felt like getting out there and doing stuff, responding to texts, setting up dates, then all would be solved.

Eventually though I will remember the annoying but indisputable truth: we don’t usually become social first—we become social by doing social things.

I don’t particularly like this answer. It would be much easier if social energy came in single-serve packs from the bodega. But waiting passively for the desire to socialize to arrive can keep us stuck.

We cancel because we don’t feel social. Then we spend less time with people, which makes socializing feel less familiar and more effortful. We lose the recent memories that remind us why connection is worth putting on pants with a button closure.

Before long, we can find ourselves lonely, isolated, and strangely powerless, even though we technically made each individual decision ourselves.

The good news, though, is that social energy can build on itself.

building social momentum

Let’s roll it back just a little. Why can doing something social make us feel more sociable afterward?

Part of the answer has to do with reinforcement learning. When an experience goes well (or even just a little better than expected) our brains take note. That experience becomes evidence that taking the action again might be worthwhile.

Positive social experiences can also strengthen future motivation through basic reinforcement processes in the brain. When an interaction is even slightly more rewarding than expected, it updates how we anticipate similar situations in the future, making them feel less effortful to initiate. Over time, these small “prediction updates” can reduce the perceived cost of showing up, even before we consciously feel excited about it.

It’s not entirely different from practicing Spanish verbs again and again. Repetition makes the process more familiar and accessible. We need chances to remind our brains, “Oh, right. This is what happens when I actually go out.”

In everyday terms, once I show up, the weight of the logistics starts to fade. I stop thinking about the commute, the effort, and the aforementioned pants. I start experiencing the thing I was actually looking for: connection.

We might get into an unexpectedly interesting conversation. We might laugh about something stupid. Or the experience may not be life-changing, but still pleasant enough that we decide to do something again.

That recent memory makes the next social plan feel more doable. And then the next one gives us another memory to draw from.

That’s social momentum.

Here are a few ways to help build it:

• Set up one recurring commitment that you actually enjoy: Choose something that does not require you to renegotiate with yourself every single week: your city’s Skip the Small Talk event, a monthly brunch, a weekly book group, or a biweekly laundry date with a friend.

  A standing plan removes some of the hardest parts: deciding what to do, choosing a date, and initiating the conversation from scratch.

  The key is to choose something you actually like. The goal is not to fill every opening in your calendar or force yourself into activities that reliably drain you.

• Capitalize on the energy: Schedule or set firm intentions to make the next hang happen while you’re still socializing. “This was great! What would you like to do next week?” “I loved this braised halloumi appetizer, do you want to hit the Small Plates Fest with me on Friday?” Get out the calendars, send the text, right then when the experience is still fresh.

• Share about the experience: Sharing a positive experience can help reinforce it.

  Call a friend and tell them about the unexpectedly lovely conversation you had. Send someone a photo. Post about it. Write the memory on a scrap of paper and put it in a jar to revisit later.

  You can share the awkward parts, too. Sometimes turning a mildly uncomfortable moment into a funny story helps us remember that socializing does not need to go perfectly to be worthwhile.

Make starting as easy as possible

You do not have to go from three weeks on the couch to hosting a twelve-person dinner party.

Choose a small, specific action: reply to one text. Take a ten-minute walk with a friend. Attend something with a defined beginning and end. Ask someone to meet near your apartment. Give yourself permission to leave after an hour.

Lowering the activation energy is not cheating. It is often what makes momentum possible.

Your ideal amount of socializing will be completely different from someone else’s, and that’s awesome.

You may feel deeply satisfied by one one-on-one hangout each week. You may thrive on several group activities. You may need lots of quiet time after every event. The point is not to reach some universally correct level of sociability.

The useful question is whether your choices are actually restoring you, or whether inertia has started making them for you.

Rest when you need rest.

But when another night on the couch is starting to feel less like self-care and more like slowly becoming part of the furniture, try doing one small thing that gives connection a chance to create more connection.

You may not need to feel social before you begin.

Sometimes beginning is how the feeling happens.