As I grow older, I find my taste for crowds diminishing. I have noticed this feeling slowly evolving over the last decade or so. I used to love concerts, parties and big events. While I have always been annoyed by theater talkers, the crowd itself never bothered me.
As I wandered through my late 30s and into my 40s I stopped going to these places. It was subtle and I never really put the reason together with the action, but I slowly distanced myself from the crush of the crowd. I'd pick quiet nights for theaters, stopped going to concerts, went to fewer parties. I wasn't really conscious of the effort but I made it.
Turn the clock forward to the new, socially distanced reality of our lives. We're seeing glimmers of reopening, some hope of a return to normalcy. Crowded theaters and concerts are likely a LONG way off but it's hard to imagine that we won't see those things again.
The question is will anyone be interested in returning to that "norm"?
I find myself perfectly fine with the notion that we're not lining up for blockbusters or concerts any more. Sadly, without the big box-office, we are likely to see a serious redefinition of the word "Blockbuster" for the foreseeable future. If the next Marvel movie can't pack 'em in to the tune of a billion-ish dollars, the budgets are going to shrink. Either there'll be fewer spaceships and super heroes in our future or those heroes are gonna be beating the bad guys on smaller sets with smaller effect packages while wearing last year's tights.
Anyhow, this whole ramble is just to ask, if they re-open the theater, reschedule the concert and turn Magic Mountain back on, will you be lining up? For me this is kind of a watershed moment. I've been anti-crowd for a while and now I have a legitimate, non-grumpy old man reason to just stop going out altogether. How 'bout you?
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