I find some degree of commute itself necessary for my mental health. The act of traveling itself flips a mental switch. Just being home all day, I basically have to go out and pick up a coffee or something in the morning just to simulate that feeling.

This must be learned, commuting is definitely not something I would say was good for my mental health.

Heh, all these comments are very much "to each their own" but ya, holy heck did I ever HATE my commute. It wasn't even that long, but it was depressing. I didn't even realize how filled with dread I was every night before going to bed and every day around 4pm or so realizing I'd be faced with getting myself home. This situation is heaven for me (not saying I'm happy about why we're in this situation, to be clear).

Of course, I live alone in a decent-sized apartment outside of downtown. I also work at an XP shop (I actually much prefer remote pairing) and I'd probably feel differently if I had to work alone all day every day.

> For me, I'm mentally better off when I hang out with people physically than when I sit at home isolated chatting on slack. For you that might be different.

But in a way, this is not a balanced relationship. Sure, you'd want to interact with people like you who are excited about being together, so that's the preferred state anyway, but if most of your colleagues are of the 2nd sort, then you put the effort of going in the office to no reward. You could connect with people outside your immediate sphere, but team cohesion isn't helped by that and you might start disliking working there. So in a way you get some bubbles forming - those who prefer virtual interaction and those who prefer face-to-face.

This will probably be a big factor for career progression - is your manager leaning towards WFH or office-work? If you're on the other side, you might get left behind. Not that there aren't plenty of such possible discrepancies already out there

My exp is the exact opposite. I find being able to avoid the people I don't ever want to talk to a much better mental health boost.

The people I want to talk to are usually busy doing actual work so we usually catch up at lunch or after work. I also have the personal numbers of those people. All the people that have time to talk during the work day I'd rather not talk to. I know this is basically an insult for that I'm sorry but I suspect you are one of those people. The awkward guy with no friends that comes to the office for his social interaction fix.

Riffing ideas is not helpful sorry but its just your awkward way of socializing. Has anyone really ever said oh ok I'll just trash this work and start over after "riffing"? No they just go "haha" and continue doing whatever they were doing.