Driving anxiety is a bane. I was primarily public transport, but moved to a less public transport friendly city and bought a fairly nice, pretty much new (2 years old) car around a year ago, in part due to COVID.

I’ve put maybe 30 miles on the car in a year, which is due to a mix of working from home and being terrified to drive in a city and on multi-lane roads. Love to drive out in nature on sparse two lanes, but it’s like the second I step into a car, my social anxiety transfigures itself, and now cars and people have merged, and I have become a car who is socially afraid of other cars.

Positive note: I have not developed attraction to other cars, so at least the aspect of my social anxiety relating to dating and attraction hasn’t slithered in (yet). Negative note: when I bump into organic people I generally don’t get hurt or hurt someone, but with metalorganiccarpeople an injury is more likely.

Second positive note: I’ve heard a not insignificant number of people are insecure about the speed of their windshield wipers, and they get anxious thinking about people in other cars judging them for that. So far, so good on that for me.