The Illusion of Socialization & Networking Burnout
Disclaimer: Everything below is a mix of what I observed and heard during the event. The goal isn’t to pinpoint "who exactly said what," but to share (usually) an outsider's view and overall perspective on these industries. I’m not here to act as a definitive firsthand source—readers should do their own research. I hope this inspires you to attend events, explore new industries, and hear what leaders are presenting. These notes combine my observations with thoughts on how things could run smoother and how ideas connect (IMO). I’m not an expert, you know? Just hanging out in the room with them. Enjoy.
This is a blog about two events I went to. They kinda go in opposite order in a psychology sense, cause the first talk was about burnout and then the second event literally leads to burnout, but in disguise. I’ll get into it below.
Why Attend: I like the venue/group of the first event - and thought I liked the second group more than I actually did the second time around. Lately, I’m feeling this weird mix of pre-burnout but also ‘not accomplishing enough,’ so the talk on burnout prevention seemed interesting. Then the second event is monthly, recurring - and I wanted to join since I enjoyed it last month… but then the longer I was there, the more I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone or something.
Photo Collage and Commentary:
Notes from the Event:
FIRST EVENT:
Burnout Coach - chronic stress and burnout
The woman hosting this event is a huge fan of this organization (me too)
Lots of facts have been studied on men about burnout, only recently have they been learning about women
The burnout misconception is that you are weak -but actually, no, that’s backwards. It means you are so strong and you’re just nust taught tools for stress management.
High achievers find themselves in burnout.
It means you’re ignoring all of the symptoms from your body that you need a break.
Stress worsens 80% of all illnesses.
In 2026, 50% of women say they’re more stressed than a year ago because of ‘lack of support.’
When you’re enjoying moments, you lessen your stress.
But for the speaker, she couldn’t figure out why she’d crash and burn over and over again, no matter which job she was doing, no matter which career.
We are never taught to manage stress properly. But we need to learn how to achieve success without sacrificing our health and our sanity in the meantime.
The process for no burnout?
- Resilience, reflection, rewiring, rebuilding, and reclaiming
Normally, she will teach these things over a few weeks or months.
It’s hard to implement new things when you’re already at your limit and running on survival mode.
Yeah, I do literally feel like crying right now. I think I’m more stressed/burned out than I realize - but, also, I did recently schedule myself a lot of days off into the next few weeks. Days to read, lie in the sun, and recoup. Cause i feel like I’ve worked 100+ days straight lately. Maybe more.
You want to let out your stress. You want to scream, you want to build. And maybe your past attempts haven’t worked in the long term.
She will ask people, “Can you tell me about the actual stress in your life right now?” - Oftentimes, people will say it’s finances.
How is this stress affecting your mind, body, and spirit?
A heavy feeling, background anxiety, can’t rest, mind wanders.. these are all signs of burnout
What can you do to make yourself feel refreshed and reset?
You may need better boundaries.
A lot of the typical basic tips don’t truly solve the problem of burnout. Like we’ve been driving with the warning lights on for so long that more problems have built up. We can no longer solve the original problem cause there are deeper issues.
Every time you turn on the car, the light is on. It’s your new normal.
Things keep adding up and you stop being okay.
Sometimes we cover it up with coping mechanisms
like drugs, alcohol, etc.
You were taught to keep going. Your new normal is that things keep getting worse. Right?
Solutions must match where you are, not where you started.
Your life is yours to fix.
Burnout is exhaustion, emotionally and physcially. It’s unmanaged stress affecting multiple layers of function. Its prolonged stress. The majority of humans are in survival state.
-When your body feels safe, you can reset the stress cycle. But when you’re constantly on edge, sensing possible threats, you never get hte chance to reset. SO these threats and that stress state keeps getting compounded.
What can reset your state?
physical
…..
(more soon/later)
SECOND EVENT:
This second event… I’ll just put the post I made on social media here. It was an event I attended last month and had fun at, but this second month, I started to realize it was just exhausting. Plus it was in a new part of hte same building, but the acoustics were terrible and I was getting overstimulated by how loud it was just while everoyne was networking oveor nothing.
I’m getting burnt out from so much shallow networking and performed connection and repetitive transactional conversation that leads to nearly nothing. I dont like this.
POST:
After answering "what do you do for work?" 50+ times in a night, I was numb.
Over 100 people there, yet 99% could only think of one opener, "So, what do you do for work?".
Like, 40 times in, I'm like, "education... did you do anything fun this weekend? Can we talk about anything else, please?" 🙏😂
It's my second networking event in two weeks, where I've left with the same feeling of disbelief/confusion.
- Performed social interactions.
- Transactional conversations.
- Surface-level networking.
- Alcohol-heavy environments
- A room full of peers, yet somehow... painfully lonely.
At one point I told someone, "I'm so sick of this question: 'What do you do for work?' I'm done with it!!!" I probably offended them, but it wasn't personal.
I want to know PEOPLE. What do you care about? What 'crazy' theories do you believe? What are you trying to change, even if its scary?
Then - okay! If we get along, let's work together. #networking
But standing in a room, exchanging 'elevator pitches' over and over again, person after person, it isn't connection. It's an exhausting performance.
And it's painfully lonely disguised as socializing.
Meanwhile:
"Loneliness has reached global epidemic levels, with nearly one in three U.S. adults (32.1%) and about one in six people globally experiencing it."
- WHO, 2026
No sh*t.
Towards the end of the first "networking hour" (right before the presentations began), I ran into a guy I'd met at another event.
I said hey to him and he said: "Have you heard the theory that only 600,000 people on Earth have souls and everyone else is an NPC?"
Of course, I was hooked. We sat down, skipped all the presentations.
We even got nudged/lectured by one of the leaders to go and join everyone else.
- Then we politely nodded and told her that we were talking about surveillance and how it turns out sports stadiums can hear EVERY conversation in every seat, even whispers - (I heard this in a presentation by a former Microsoft CEO)
The leader nodded, gave up, then went back into the room.
We spent the rest of the event talking about clones, NPCs, social performance, status games, why people chase proximity to stages and power... and how it feels like many companies seem to be building slightly different versions of the same thing. How sometimes these events are so dull and unreal - WHY are we here??
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time.
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if there’s no other reason to go. Let’s see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. 😊
