No New Friends: The Phenomena of COVID & Comfort
I’ve reached that point of no return: abrasive energy from new people in my life get cut off with extreme prejudice.
It might be the fact that I’ve reached a point of harmony in my life: doing well in school, work is going smoothly, my partner & I are evolving together — balance is beautiful. I don’t want to consider another person’s undeveloped social energy, whatsoever.
Call me a bitch. I don’t care. Personally and collectively, the weight of recent events is a heavy burden to bear.
My love’s mother is a surgeon in the COVID hot zone — she calls, sobbing, sharing her hopes for a reprieve after a year treating patients that are more likely to die from COVID than not.
My county is open in Phase 2, which means my workplace is becoming more crowded by the day with people ready to resume a normal life. These strangers don’t care that I’ve spent near 5 days a week since the end of June 2020 in an empty concrete building safe from the threat of infectious disease, and social distancing behind my desk by proxy of the closures.
Schools re-opening should be a cause for celebration but I’ve become used to the fact that I could complete homework and sit on Zoom classes while I’m at work because it was that slow. That won’t really be a thing anymore pretty soon.
The time for change is upon us.
And not some type of new, never-before-seen change. No, this change reminds me of the quiet shifts I’ve had to make in my life when my outdated beliefs and routines stopped serving their purpose.
Last night, my roommate had an acquaintance over — oh my, do y’all even remember having acquaintances? Talk about a throwback to pre-pandemic life.
Anyway, it was a disaster. She was terribly awkward. We were horrendously awkward. It was uncomfortable for everyone involved for the whole night.
My roommate, my partner, and I all knew this girl from the neighborhood. We enjoyed running into her every now and then. I’d stay and chat a little bit while ordering a latte, she’d mention something about business and shared customers (we work less than a block from each other), and then I’d go about the rest of my day.
Fast forward two years to last night, it was possibly the worst night I’ve had in my own house since we moved in. Suffice to say: no one, and I mean no one, was having a good time.
My partner and I went to sleep last night without even processing the whole debacle because we just wanted to get the F out of the situation as fast as we could. He ended up driving around pointlessly from 2 am-4 am because he couldn’t sleep with those uncomfortable and unprocessed feelings. I passed out and woke up hours before my alarm and couldn’t go back to sleep.
Talk about harmony disrupted. What am I supposed to think after such a shitty social interaction?
Over the course of this pandemic, certain friendships have distanced and others have grown closer and deeper. It’s natural. I hold no grudges against people for the current they drift on in their lives. But what does it mean when we attempt to re-emerge into society after forced separation? Humans are social creatures.
I can say with complete honesty that half of the people in my house last night experienced a mild-to-severe anxiety attack. It could’ve been for a number of reasons or triggers, too. Who’s to say?
What I do know is that if it’s gonna be this hard to get back into prosocial behavior, it’ll take a mental and moral resilience stronger than what I have right now.
I hope that girl is okay after last night’s shitshow. That’s as much as I can offer. My harmony is too precious to me to do anything more than that.
