Friendship in the Time of Corona

Like many other self-pitying Americans reaching for comfort in a time of uncertainty, I recently started rewatching Schitt’s Creek. There’s a lot to love about the show, but what stands out to me this go-around are the gatherings: impromptu parties in Mutt’s barn, Roland and Jocelyn’s backyard Hawaiian-themed hog roast, Jazzagals choir rehearsals, game nights with friends, friends in general… you can probably see where I’m going with this. I miss people, and it feels equal parts heartbreaking and scandalous to watch characters on-screen congregating with reckless abandon while I’m on my (checks watch) ninth month of social distancing. To be fair, I have a handful of friends I’ve seen a handful of times—outside, masked, distanced—but it’s hard without the hugs. It’s hard not to invite anyone into my home, which I work so hard to make the kind of place other people want to be.

Some years ago, a friend and I realized we shared a common aspiration of wanting to be known and remembered as good hosts—our homes havens where all feel warmed and welcomed. This has been true of me for as long as I can remember, but at the time I’d just started living by myself, so it felt like the perfect opportunity to flex my hospitality muscles. Lucky for me, I had a lot of wonderful friends and neighbors around me who made it easy. My apartment, though small, became a gathering place for “rogue Sunday School” discussion group meetings, movie nights, Oscars award show parties, and even a historically-tiny-for-my-family Thanksgiving dinner with just me and my little brother. Within the first few months living there, I had many out-of-town visitors crash with me because I lived in a convenient downtown location. I loved opening my home up to others. It was one of my favorite things about my life—and myself.

As with many things, COVID has exacerbated already-existing tears in our social fabric. For several years now, I have been puzzling over what made that season of my life, and previous ones, so socially rich. Since moving and starting my grad program about five years ago, I have found adult friendships to be much more elusive, and I often think about what role they play in society, including within Mormonism, and why it’s gotten so much harder to create and sustain them. I can’t just chalk it up to a personal issue, either; consider one of my favorite memes (which, I didn’t realize until locating it for this post, was popularized by a Mormon on Twitter):

There are a few theories: it turns out your 30s are much different than your 20s, so maybe just add “social woes” to the list of reasons no one likes aging. Being in a demanding profession (including study programs) can leave people with little time, energy, or perceived “permission” for socializing. As you get older, more and more of your friends pair off—and especially in Mormon culture, couples who tie the knot are infamous for never being seen fraternizing outside the family unit ever again. (Just kidding. Sort of.) To that point, American society, and Mormonism in particular, places high value on the nuclear family unit, often at the expense of extrafamilial relationships and broader community-mindedness. Having kids is a lot of work; parents are understandably tired. It seems like each passing generation is getting more and more anxious, which can certainly take a toll on the kind of energy and spontaneity many friendships require.

These are all obstacles to take seriously, of course. But if we want to address this ongoing crisis of social cohesion, the first order of business is to (re-)assert the importance of adult friendships in our culture. If we don’t hold and protect this as a shared value, we’ll continue to have structures in place that make it difficult for adults to socialize outside of the internet or their immediate household. Ironic, of course, that I write this at a time when the internet and one’s immediate household are currently our safest bet for any human interaction during a public health crisis that has made concepts like “shelter-in-place” and “quarantine” strangely commonplace. Yet I reiterate my earlier point that the pandemic is only accelerating trends already in motion. What we do from here is up to us, though.

I’m inspired by Meg Conley’s recent newsletter “Hospitality in the Time of Covid,” in which she lists some great ideas of how to extend the boundaries of hearth and home during the pandemic. In a similar spirit, I’d like to offer a few practical ideas of how we can cultivate and maintain adult friendships in this, the year of our corona.

• Do some old-fashioned letter-writing! If you’re like me and have squirrelled away stationery for years, this is an opportunity to finally put it to good use. Otherwise, use whatever is at your disposal or treat yourself to some new letter-writing materials from your local shop (curbside pickup) or an independent seller on Etsy. In the end, it doesn’t matter what you’re writing on, just that you can brighten a friend’s day by having something other than a political flyer or a bill showing up in their mailbox. And who knows? Maybe they’ll be inspired to write back.
  
  Bonus: If you live in the States, this is a great way to support the US Postal Service! Get inspired to write a whole batch of letters by ordering a sheet of stamps online in a design you like.
   
• Use porch drop-offs as an opportunity to connect with friends who live nearby. You can swing by and deliver treats, a book to borrow, or a small care package. If they’re home, you can wave from the sidewalk or driveway and have a short in-person chat (masked, distanced). (As someone who did a successful round of reverse trick-or-treating for Halloween and lived on the social high for days, I highly recommend this.)
  
  
• If you want to help a friend but live far away or can’t do a porch drop-off yourself, offer to order their groceries, surprise them by having a restaurant meal delivered (or a baked good! or a fancy seasonal drink from a cafe!), or send a small gift from a local business you want to support. We’re in the golden age of delivery—the sky’s the limit.
  
  
• Take the guesswork out of your virtual hangouts by picking a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly day and time you’ll gather for game nights, Netflix parties, or book clubs. Try to use a different video platform than you use at work (seriously, no more Zoom). I’ve found for myself that Google Hangouts and Facebook video chat effectively signal to my brain that I’m having fun, not logging in to another work meeting. Maybe you like Discord or FaceTime or WhatsApp. Whatever it is, go with something that has positive associations for you and your friends.
  
  
• Check in with your friends regularly. I know many of us are weirdly busy even as our lives are at a standstill and it feels loaded to ask, “How are you?” Ask anyway. Find a way to ask that shows you care and are willing to be a listening ear.
  
  
• Keep inviting people to stuff. One of the depressing things about this time is just feeling like your social calendar is an endless vacuum. But there are still ways to spend time together. Plan a bike ride or caravan to drive through the neighborhood that always puts up a big holiday light display. (You can record a short video for your faraway people.) See if a couple friends want to walk around the park and do some birdwatching or play Pokemon Go. Do a little living-room concert or short cooking demonstration on Facebook or Instagram Live. Keep it safe, keep it outdoors or virtual, but make the invitation. Most people will appreciate it and feel thought-of even if they can’t come along.
  
  
• Pay attention. Be intentional. Show thought and care. These are the ingredients to successful relationship-building of every kind. For a longer list steeped in these basic principles, check out BuzzFeed’s “A More or Less Definitive Guide to Showing Up for Friends.”

As I write this, I understand that it may be hard to implement new behaviors and rituals during this time when everything feels (and is) so upended and even basic tasks like exercising, making meals, or getting our regular work done can feel behemoth. One of the reasons I felt moved to write this post, though, is precisely because I see people getting burned out on pandemic life and letting our collective social life collapse—and this could have ramifications long after we’re fully “reopened.” Example: I’m a member of my department’s social committee. Normally, the graduate students meet at least once a week for happy hour, in addition to brown-bag lunch discussions, film screenings, and holiday parties. This semester, despite our best intentions, we haven’t gotten a single activity off the ground. Not a one. No one wants to schedule another video call. Everyone is burned out on virtual game nights. Our efforts to translate our regular social lives into digital spaces have fallen flat because we’re all starting to feel just how weak a replacement our Zoom hellscape is for “real life.” I’m right there, too, but I also worry that dropping the ball now means we go into the next nine months of social distancing feeling very, well, distant.

I’m also not trying to suggest that there aren’t things we’ve learned to live without that we’ll be just as happy to leave behind forever (makeup, pants with zippers, long commutes, meetings-that-could-have-been-emails). Maybe for you that includes certain social obligations like throwing elaborate themed birthday parties for your two-year-old or going to your boss’s barbecue; if you’re better off without these, more power to you. But no matter how much of an introvert you are or how much you might be reveling in the sweatpants lifestyle, we all need friends and we owe it to ourselves and one another to take care of each other. It’s especially vital that we do so in a society without a strong social safety net, where adults living outside of supportive family structures are often left to fend for themselves. They deserve a community of genuine friends. You deserve a community of genuine friends. And, in case we’ve forgotten, friendship isn’t just another empty obligation of modern life: even though it can take work, it’s also fun, rewarding, and life-giving. 

This Friendsgiving, let’s stay home so we can gather later. Let’s reach out to someone who could really, really use a friendly voice. And as we look to our post-COVID future, let’s make sure the “new normal” includes a reinvigorated commitment to that glorious “sociality which exists among us here.”

Cover photo by Jon Eric Marababol on Unsplash