one more thing that didn't help the hermiting is the whole mask and politics thing. between that, seeing people support people who think that my homosexual fri

one more thing that didn't help the hermiting is the whole mask and politics thing. between that, seeing people support people who think that my homosexual friends are mentally ill and that I am "lazy" and am better off performing low-skilled labor for them, and seeing the glass ceiling I am definitely subjected to (go ahead and count the number of Black and/or Latino staff/principal engineers, engineering leaders and executives in the industry; i'll wait), it made it really hard to strike up conversations with anyone like I used to. not impossible; just way harder.