But my discomfort stems not just from the ostentatious decoration, or from the oppressive warmth, or from the perfumed but acrid scent of other people surrounding me, shooting up my nose like a chemical weapons attack. It’s not only the sound, the chittering and cackling of too many voices straining to make themselves heard.

It’s the bodies.

Even if I close my eyes and block my ears, I can sense them. Mere feet from me, they span all directions, appropriating space, emitting sound waves and social urgency and, without a doubt, respiratory particles.

A party, it should be obvious, is not my thing. By now, you’ve gleaned a few more facts about me, or you think you have. Socially awkward, you’re thinking; oversensitive. Insecure. Or maybe this: too introspective.

I feel the need to defend myself from your assumptions, even though they are logical. Despite my earlier warning, I’m actually good with people. My people, anyway. I like my people. I’m not a hermit or overwhelmed by sensory stimuli either; I can state without any exaggeration that I’ve endured some of the harshest conditions the planet has to offer.

I’m just not great around a lot of people. Especially now.

To my left, a blond bejeweled woman in her fifties gazes with rapt attention at an older man at her side, her fingers stroking the green circular pin at the top left of her long, floaty dress. His suit sports a corresponding pin, also on the left, at his lapel. Next to him, another couple, a beefy white man and a rail-thin, much younger woman, display their respective pins in the same spots. I reach for my pin, securely attached to the right side of my blazer. There’s no mandate regarding pin placement—you can put it anywhere on your torso you like, as long as it’s easily visible—but to me it’s come to serve as a signal for handedness. Right-hand-dominant people tend to pin theirs on the left, and vice versa, making it easy to keep a running tally of the lefties.

I’ve spent little time in society over the last several months, but still, I’m amazed at the ease with which these people have adapted to the fear that first gripped the world not even two years ago. The acute sickness caused by the artiovirus is rare now, vanquished by an army of public health servants, and, ultimately, a vaccine, but our world still bears the ghostly imprints of the lost: children who live with grandparents instead of parents, schools without qualified teachers, and above all, hospitals still in crisis mode because of a lack of doctors and nurses and cleaners and techs. There are, however, still plenty of hospital administrators.