This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the return-to-office crowd, like myself, wants. Work relationships and personal relationships serve entirely different purposes for me.

I don't want to be working longer hours, or make work a larger part of my life. I don't particularly care if I have "real" friendships with my colleagues outside of work. I have plenty of friends and family that I already have trouble juggling.

What I want is the camaraderie, greater trust, mentorship, professional networks, etc. that comes from working with people during the day in a shared space.

I'm not sitting with a church community or sports team during my 9-5. I've had a couple co-working memberships during the last couple years - most people just go there to sit and work quietly. Maybe you make some small talk here and there. Except for the people working with their colleagues who are also in the co-working space.

There’s also a risk management side to this. If my social life is built around my office and then I get laid off, that’s a massive impact on my social life. Decoupling reduces that risk significantly.

Yeah but it's not a choice to work 40ish hours a week talking and communicating for introverts that's pretty taxing. At least in office we had a few laughs and good times and some face to face. Now it's all the soul sucking without any of the benefits like grabbing lunch together or skivving off a meeting and smoking cigarettes behind the dumpster. After 40hr/s having to go out and do even more socializing is hard because i used my socializing juice up at work

I think most of the "but you need human interaction" crowd isn't talking about their social life. It's much harder to collaborate with coworkers when you have no relationship with them. It's not impossible to have a relationship with coworkers when remote, but you have to put a lot more effort in than you would in person. Some companies are facilitating that, but some aren't.

Plus it's just easier than ever to meet people outside of work. If there's no existing group for your interest, be the change you want to see and create one. I'm not saying a person will suddenly have a ton of friends, but even in the antisocial world of LA, my Meetup group gets at least a small handful to show up most of the time.

I totally get being social with your coworkers as a bonus, but it's a little sad to me that people need to rely on that one source. I can count on one hand the percentage of coworkers whom I've actually kept in contact with after either one left the company. Most coworker relationships are a matter of convenience. If that's what people prefer, then cool, but don't act like there's no such thing as human interaction outside the office.