I think it is, on average, incorrect to say that people are staying home for fear of the pandemic which is what I think you are suggesting. I think the average hn reader probably skews much more cautious about coronavirus, much better able to remain indoors, and much more, for want of a better phrase, socially responsible than the average person. And even among hn readers plenty will not be staying at home much.

That said, I think there are pandemic-adjacent reasons people might be doing less socialising. Maybe people you might socialise with have moved away and not been replaced in the last two years. Maybe the people who would organise events you would go to skew more towards the cautious end. Maybe people are less interested in social things due to other upheavals in their lives. Maybe people have forgotten how to socialise. Maybe they are focusing on the relationships they had before more than anything new. Maybe we just forget how hard things were before and look at the past with rose-tinted spectacles.