Emotional Hangover After a Great Experience With a New Group

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On Friday night and last night, I went to events with a new social group I joined. (No, not *that* one. ) I ended up having a blast both nights. On Friday, we went to dinner at a restaurant. It was a "last minute members' choice": we met in a downtown area, picked a restaurant, and walked there. I proposed a divey Colombian restaurant, the kind where you have to know Spanish to talk to the workers; after a little back-and-forth, other people agreed. I got arepas with spicy pork and cheese, one person next to me got some kind of rice dish, and others got what they liked. I had very good conversations with the people next to me and across from me. People liked the food, and praised me for picking it and for knowing Spanish. At the end, we parted ways with hearty handshakes, and for about half of us, statements about seeing each other again at the laser tag next day. (See below.)

Next day, we got together to play laser tag. Since I played Counter Strike as a teenager, where I learned shooting strategies, I was pretty good at it. Namely, evading opponents' lasers by leaning against structures and knowing how to shoot opponents in sneak attacks. Other team members were good too. My team won by 4 points. We hit up the on-site bar after. A few people came up to me to praise me for my restaurant choice the day before. We also talked about previous laser tag experiences we had, and happiness about businesses reopening after lockdowns. I had more good conversations, with both men and women.

But now, Sunday morning, I feel a strange sense of sadness and listlessness, like an emotional hangover. I had a blast with those people, but I'm not feeling any residual happiness from it. I think I know why: these good experiences harken back to what it felt like when I joined a different new social group back in 2015. That, and that certain group I joined in 2020. My early experiences with those groups felt like these new ones, and it took months for those friendships to "solidify". I was also 7 years younger, and still had vestiges of youthful imagination and patience, which I no longer have today. Plus, I've drifted apart from that long-time group over the last 2 years, due to months-long lockdowns (which meant not hanging out) and political disagreements. I'm still good friends with that certain group, at least, and met a few of their friends as well.

Now, with this new group, I feel like I have to do the work again: put in face time, make conversations, and form bonds, to recreate the same feeling of camaraderie I had with the group I met in 2015. Heck, I rang in the New Year with them twice in a row, and had a blast both times! Putting in effort felt good, the results felt good, but it was still many months of work. Only for it all to be undone by a virus; all the connections I made during those years are all gone. Today, only time will tell what's going to happen with this new group, both today and for New Year 2023.

Not to mention, politics play a big role in my choice of friends today, which wasn't true in 2015. This new group feels solidly moderate to slightly right-leaning; I could tell from their lack of obsession with masks and social distancing. Most people enthusiastically shook hands or hugged, and less than half the people wore masks. (I didn't talk about politics not even once while hanging out with them, although I probably gave off a slight conservative vibe; I talked about video games, traveling, and dogs.) While the group I met in 2015 was and still is strongly liberal, which means I would not bond with them at all today.

So I think that's why I'm feeling an emotional hangover after a great experience with a new group. Any other thoughts?