A lanky old man camps with his adult daughter in mountains like above Cedar Breaks in Utah. One afternoon he vanishes. She hunts the slopes. At last she finds him, striding through brush as if on a mission. She calls; he eyes her like a stranger and stalks on. Has he had a stroke?

The change is permanent. He never relates to her again--or anyone. She twists herself into odd behavioral shapes to try and reach him, be different enough from normal folks to be acceptable... but nothing works. He's alive but withdrawn from her. From all.

He's not alone. She introduces me to more adults who've lost living parents, not to dementia but desocia, this catastrophic collapse of interest in people. One of those grieving is my Aunt Evi; her husband Mac has just withdrawn. He reads, he does astronomy--but no longer does... people.

And what about me? Able to contact others, just unwilling to put out the effort, even though intellectually I connect my inaction with its resulting loneliness. Yet I don't act on that insight--just stride on alone. I can recognize cases like me more clearly from outside than in.

NEXT MORNING

Now that I've named it, I do have "desocia"--I didn't notice, since it grew insidiously. But the dream makes it sudden, catastrophic, visible.

What is it? I don't lose my memories of friends, or lack social skills... I lack social interest. Yet I feel lonely, can see my withdrawal leads to the feeling. So I force myself to try, and... find most socializing dreary & even lonelier than solitude. So I withdraw more. Vicious circle.

I'm not sure if this is self-destructive or just honest failure in my hunt for people I like. Or, of course, a failure to be likable. Or both! Aspies--and I'm a severe one--do often have trouble making friends, even in normal times. But add the isolation of the Covid pandemic and a long slow drip of failures, and you get... apathy. Or as the medievals would say, the sin of despair. This dream's a warning.

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