Rebuilding Your Social Life Is Going to Be Awkward
Our circles have shrunk but not permanently
There hasn’t been a single friend who I didn’t think was mad at me at some point over the last year.
I’m not usually like this. Typically, an unreturned text or an ignored Instagram DM would spark mild annoyance. Maybe a little bit of hurt. But not this level of profound paranoia — reply or no reply, I knew I’d still see the person again. In the time of our great social distancing experiment, though, I’ve interpreted any silence to mean the end of our friendship once and for all.
Of course, this wasn’t the case. But given the option of shivering in an outdoor environment for a brief hangout this winter or yet another Zoom call at the end of yet another long day, it’s no surprise many of us simply opted to pause on some friendships for a while. And without closure, it can feel like these relationships are done for good.
The pandemic has wreaked havoc on friendships. Casual relationships, like professional colleagues or boot camp workout buddies, are inconceivable without the physical locations where they occur. Conflicting approaches to distancing, masking, or vaccination have created rifts in even the most solid of friendships while exhaustion and burnout have made maintaining even the closest of relationships…
