Yesterday evening, while walking outside with my kid sister, we talked about my meetings with high school or college classmates in China. She told me she seldom went to such gatherings. It's boring because there's not much to talk about with them. People are about the same, more or less.
While I don't go to every one of them, I do enjoy and need some. I told her, meeting people is part of a healthy retirement lifestyle that we should embrace.
Baby brains thrive in many ways with abundance of outside stimulations. Imagine the damage to a baby mentally and emotionally if he were well-fed and clad but were by himself all day long, in a room without human interactions. A deprivation I would consider a crime against humanity!
On the other hand, following the use or loss rule, senior folks' brains shrink faster due to lack of social interactions.
Habits follow the-more-the-more rule, such as, the more you avoid human interactions, the more you feel dreadful about meeting people, the more you prefer being locked in by yourself. This is not good for our brains.
My sister mentioned a gathering during the Spring Festival where the host, after slurping down too much alcohol, started 吹牛逼 (chuī niú bī) bragging. People either 吹牛B or 装13 (zhuāng shi san) pretending at the gathering. It's a waste of time sitting there.
Change your way of looking: this is a super entertaining stage in which people perform without masks. You can't get this free entertainment at home. You can observe, participate, make comments, have fun, or directly tell them to stop bragging or pretending. Get real. Be positive.