i've def gotten worse at noisy crowds since the pandemic, harder to filter out everything else while being open to the person i want to listen to
curiosity helps a lot- when the conversation comes to a pause, having something i genuinely want to know makes it easy to ask a friendly question
i have a religious belief that in theory i could connect with everyone; but in practice idk, some ppl feel soft and open while others feel too rigid or withdrawn or fake and every word requires me to force myself to stay and engage