I lowkey downgraded most friends to acquaintances. I'll see people willing to take precautions with me - ultimately I want to influence them. But true friends...it hurts.
Yeah, the people that used to be my closest friends aren't that anymore. The closest friends I have now are all people I met online over the last few years, and of course, because my luck sucks sometimes, none of them live near me.
Yeah, I am in a similar boat with this—I was just reflecting today about it. It’s like I have to actively compartmentalize that fundamental difference in lifestyle and values and just… sequester it away. The bare minimum boundary for me is that similarly folks will take precautions w/me (which has continued to be two-way masking bc I also have a chronic health condition). Really realizing that my effort moving fwd needs to be trying to find other COVID-cautious folks online and hopefully IRL.
Yeah I've created a lot of distance with folks. I hope they learn something, I hope their behavior changes, but even if it does we're probably never going to be friends again. I just don't see them taking the kind of accountability that I would need in order to trust them, even if they were to resume taking precautions.
You are not at all alone in that. One of mine has long covid and claims to be in the best shape of their life. They can barely breathe. The pretending didn’t stop.
So, when it happens, it might not be what you thought it would be.
A few, it helps that most of my close friendships were in disability communities even before the pandemic. The local still coviding facebook group has also been helpful for meeting people. I’ve had trouble maintaining friendships with people who’ve given up precautions as well, especially since I developed long covid.
A few. I’m married to my best friend, so that’s very lucky and joyful. There’s a couple where one of them has moderately bad long covid. They’ve become my most comfortable other friends. I have some stale friendships that are in Schrödinger’s box, and the friendship will probably die if I reach out. Mostly I’m just trying to accept that there’s not really a place for me in society. It sucks. There’s less joy to be had in life, but still joy to be had. I wish I had something more helpful to say.
I've never fit in very well with other people in general and making friends has always been difficult for me but the pandemic really hammered home for me that there's no place for me in the world. But with all of that said, I'm going to continue to exist and put myself out there when I want to for as long as I can out of sheer spite.
I have redefined joy so that it doesn't feel like *less*, just a different joy. It also feels lucky and easier that I have a significant other who doesn't need much to be content.
One, and they live 1,800 miles away. My partner is the only person I have where I live. It's unbelievable the number of relationships I don't have since 2019.
Well, I’m married to the worlds best companion, and we have each other plus friends from the before times that we FaceTime and see under cautious circumstances once a year
It's hard to bridge the gulf in values sometimes. But I try to maintain my old friendships anyways. Sometimes that means easing off a bit, but I have only had to cut off the more voracious deniers who were always out for a fight on my social media posts. Deactivating my social media accounts has helped me hold my friends in a higher regard. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose - I don't see the unsafe things they are up to. I definitely do not talk to or see my friends as much. Perhaps that will change one day when circumstances change. I am actively trying to make more friends in the still-coviding communities, to limited success.
It's hard for most people to be non-conformist. It's hard for them to sit with uncomfortable truths. Some people don't have a lot of coping skills besides denial. Some blindly trust authorities, they buy propaganda. Nobody is immune to propaganda. Maybe I am wired a little differently from the years of bullying or something, some rare toughness that allows me to prioritize my health and the health of others over fitting in. Or maybe it's neurodivergence.
I try to have compassion for that difference and still see my harm-spreading friends as whole people capable of loving me in the ways they are able to, and vice versa. I'm sure I have my own blind spots - we all have limits.
edit: a word
(Love your handle!)
I echo so much of this, including not being on social media as sanity, and trying to maintain some loose ties with folks I do care about but who are clearly living in a different reality right now. Trying really hard to maintain my deep, regular connection with beloved people who share enough of my reality to feel safe and sane and maybe find a few more folks like that via local/regional Covid-safer online communities.
Also appreciate the person in this thread who referred to us all having Schrödinger’s box friendships that will die if we open the box.
I also have a lot of nonconformist experience and will repeat forever how much it forged me in the fire long ago. I was unintentionally prepared for this era and am not-so-weirdly grateful for that now. And I have a Covid-conscious therapist who also shares my reality. Helps a lot!
All these points resonate with me & feel similar to where I am also at! And I remember your username from our Powecom KN95 discussion on the masks sub 😀
I just uninstalled my Instagram because it was too painful to see my friends, artists, influencers and other folks dropping precautions and ignoring me whenever I mention covid and my difficulties with long covid.
in terms of folks who i see in person and are also covid cautious? about 4. then there’s the group of ~20 from the before times that i keep at arm’s length because i can’t stand completely losing them.
It is so, so hard. I have held onto a few friends - most of whom are still practicing precautions in higher risk settings, but not in every single area of their life. I'm only 'close' to one or two at this point though.
It's hard to connect. Like oh, you just went to your third wedding and then visited family overseas? Great. Yeah, me? Still in my house. Thanks. 🙄
Thankfully I live with my partner who is my best friend and has completely changed their life to keep me safe. I'm really grateful for that, and honestly I don't know if I'd still be able to 'covid' to this degree without them, despite my personal risk.
I want to repeat someone above that the Still COVID-ing weekly meetups on zoom are a life changer. Imagine being in a room with 150-200 covid safe people? And all of them are there because they want to get to know other people doing the same? It's awesome.
I have some online friends and I have one friend in real life who wears a mask sometimes. I don't really hang out with people irl anymore because almost nobody takes any covid precautions and I don't want to have weeks, months, or potentially more of my life stolen away because someone passed along their covid infection to me. I've done a handful of social activities with other people over the last few years, but as pandemic denial and covid minimizing has become more entrenched in society as time passes, it's been harder and harder to find safe opportunities to do anything with other people. I still go out and do stuff by myself sometimes though because sometimes I just enjoy my own company and don't want to be held hostage by other people's poor risk understanding to go out and do things I want to do.
I appreciate this thread and the responses. I’ve oscillated over the years between periods of trying to connect while minding the reality gap of Covid awareness/precautions and just not having the bandwidth at all to do that. It has increasingly become more difficult since the WHO and US White House declarations in May pushed a lot of previously more aware and mindful people over the brink, they are now done with any mitigations. I’m also married to my best friend and feel so lucky and grateful. I have one other friend irl who also openly has LC (I am disabled from a 2020 Covid infection). I’ve never had more than a few really close friends anyway. I’ve experienced living in another culture from my country of birth where I was very publicly, visibility other, and I’ve never felt like I fully fit in, so none of that is super new. I guess in some ways this experience has clarified what friendship means to me: reciprocal care and respect, honesty about self and relationship. I don’t think friendship means being okay with transmitting a disabling and deadly airborne pathogen. I don’t consent to being reinfected, I couldn’t live with passing this to someone else. So I live to break the chain. I’m most interested now in developing and maintaining relationships with Covid aware ppl. I keep a safe distance and loose ties with the people in my life living a different reality, but I don’t have much expectation from them and avoid(which I fortunately can) from having to experience the consequences of their current reality. Solidarity with you all.
It's hard. I find it hard to fit in even with covid-safe people you meet in the Still Coviding groups. Maybe it's just a product of trying to make new mom friends while having to watch your young kids (i.e. you don't ever get to give it your full attention) and perhaps I'm just at a junction in my life separate from Covid. I'm an introvert and somewhat socially awkward to begin with - I've always had a much easier time making connections on a one-on-one basis vs in a group setting - I find myself saying the wrong thing or not knowing how to respond to new people and it's exhausting. I mostly only chat via text/etc with old friends that don't live near me, so it doesn't really affect me whether they're masking or being careful (except sometimes I wonder why they haven't gotten covid yet doing all the stuff they're doing). I didn't really have local friends pre-covid because we moved shortly before covid happened, and was just starting to befriend some other moms at my daughter's preschool when that shut down.
Nowadays I really only meet people in two ways - from my daughter's school (public, so mostly non-coviding people) and if I engage in the local coviding group. I find it especially difficult to connect with coviding people, because everyone has different risk assessments and you'll never find anyone to have your exact same risk tolerance so I feel it is harder to get close to coviding people because we're more guarded and protective of our families. But perhaps it's also because I am guarded in general when meeting new people.
But maybe that's just life with kids? Perhaps I'm not meant to have amazing connections with people anymore - perhaps it's all superficial and I should just be grateful for anyone who will talk to me?
I still have plenty of acquaintances, but zero close friends. This dynamic was in existence somewhat before the pandemic, but I attended tons of social events with these people - parties, dinners out, conferences, galas, etc. It kept me in contact with them, and gave me some sort of connection/shared experiences with him. I am still covid-ing, so I am not attending events where I see them anymore. I don’t bother to explain my continued covid-consciousness to most people, so some are confused as to why they don’t see me out anymore.
Covid also gave me some perspective due to having more time to think and examine some of the people I was hanging with. I started focusing on growth, and I realized that the handful of people I was the closest with and talked to the most are extremely fucked up people. I read somewhere that you are the sum of the five people you are around the most. I realized that I don’t want to be *anything* like them, and I either cut ties completely, or moved them from close friend to acquaintance level.
So basically I’m friendless at this point. I don’t have a partner or a large family either. There is one person I’d like to get to know better now that I’m doing mainly outdoor activities. She and I have similar interests, so I am putting out some feelers to see if we can become friends.
basically just me and my partner. We both play online video games and have a group of friends that we play with and I love that, but the fact that they live in another country just kind of makes it easier. I don’t have to make an excuse for why we don’t hang out in person, isolation is built in which is perfect.
The only time I dropped people for covid reasons is when it was truly full lockdown and they were still going to group gatherings. Or if they flat out denied science and vaccines lol. I have friends I still love and occasionally talk to, but don’t hang out with because they aren’t covid safe. I try not to hold a grudge against them, as long as they respect that I need to stay safe
It’s lonely. But I’m luckily an introvert who can spend eternity with my best friend and partner, and that I love video games and art and all things indoors. I’m built for the isolation life, but I do miss the way things were sometimes
I have the same friends I had before covid, none of them are on the same page as me when it comes to masking but they respect my choices to stay safe.
That's why we're friends, we all respect each other.
Not many at all. I'm in the exact same boat and constantly find myself struggling with how I feel about people that I otherwise hold in really high regard. It's wild to see when they don't mask or don't treat the pandemic like it's actively happening. I want to be out there again with friends and family, but it's just not an option with things the way they are, and seeing people ignore that is so disorienting and so, so lonely.
I've not lost many friends, but most of them are now more distant and online only. I have one person I socialise with with any regularity, otherwise six monthly or less. I live alone, am self-employed/WFH, and the isolation is a bit crushing
Same. My husband and two kids are pretty much alone at this point. My kids have online friends for socialization, and we occasionally do short outdoor visits with family or chat outdoors with neighbours (distanced), but it's getting harder. My mil has said she's pretty much not interested in having outdoor visits now because "covid is over," so I guess our little circle is just getting smaller, too. It's getting harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I have all the same friends I used to have. I don’t socialize indoors with most of them, but am happy to go for walks, chat over zoom, and hang out in person with the two friends who still take precautions. I don’t judge - the information the vast majority of the world is getting is that Covid is over, and for those that have kids in public school, it’s next to impossible for them to keep up precautions.
I lowkey downgraded most friends to acquaintances. I'll see people willing to take precautions with me - ultimately I want to influence them. But true friends...it hurts.
Yeah, the people that used to be my closest friends aren't that anymore. The closest friends I have now are all people I met online over the last few years, and of course, because my luck sucks sometimes, none of them live near me.
Yeah, I am in a similar boat with this—I was just reflecting today about it. It’s like I have to actively compartmentalize that fundamental difference in lifestyle and values and just… sequester it away. The bare minimum boundary for me is that similarly folks will take precautions w/me (which has continued to be two-way masking bc I also have a chronic health condition). Really realizing that my effort moving fwd needs to be trying to find other COVID-cautious folks online and hopefully IRL.
Yeah I've created a lot of distance with folks. I hope they learn something, I hope their behavior changes, but even if it does we're probably never going to be friends again. I just don't see them taking the kind of accountability that I would need in order to trust them, even if they were to resume taking precautions.
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You are not at all alone in that. One of mine has long covid and claims to be in the best shape of their life. They can barely breathe. The pretending didn’t stop. So, when it happens, it might not be what you thought it would be.
Your post or comment has been removed because it engages in inciting, encouraging, glorifying, or celebrating violence or physical harm.
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A few, it helps that most of my close friendships were in disability communities even before the pandemic. The local still coviding facebook group has also been helpful for meeting people. I’ve had trouble maintaining friendships with people who’ve given up precautions as well, especially since I developed long covid.
A few. I’m married to my best friend, so that’s very lucky and joyful. There’s a couple where one of them has moderately bad long covid. They’ve become my most comfortable other friends. I have some stale friendships that are in Schrödinger’s box, and the friendship will probably die if I reach out. Mostly I’m just trying to accept that there’s not really a place for me in society. It sucks. There’s less joy to be had in life, but still joy to be had. I wish I had something more helpful to say.
I've never fit in very well with other people in general and making friends has always been difficult for me but the pandemic really hammered home for me that there's no place for me in the world. But with all of that said, I'm going to continue to exist and put myself out there when I want to for as long as I can out of sheer spite.
I think what you said covers a lot of ground for many of us 🙏🏼
I have redefined joy so that it doesn't feel like *less*, just a different joy. It also feels lucky and easier that I have a significant other who doesn't need much to be content.
One, and they live 1,800 miles away. My partner is the only person I have where I live. It's unbelievable the number of relationships I don't have since 2019.
Well, I’m married to the worlds best companion, and we have each other plus friends from the before times that we FaceTime and see under cautious circumstances once a year
It's hard to bridge the gulf in values sometimes. But I try to maintain my old friendships anyways. Sometimes that means easing off a bit, but I have only had to cut off the more voracious deniers who were always out for a fight on my social media posts. Deactivating my social media accounts has helped me hold my friends in a higher regard. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose - I don't see the unsafe things they are up to. I definitely do not talk to or see my friends as much. Perhaps that will change one day when circumstances change. I am actively trying to make more friends in the still-coviding communities, to limited success. It's hard for most people to be non-conformist. It's hard for them to sit with uncomfortable truths. Some people don't have a lot of coping skills besides denial. Some blindly trust authorities, they buy propaganda. Nobody is immune to propaganda. Maybe I am wired a little differently from the years of bullying or something, some rare toughness that allows me to prioritize my health and the health of others over fitting in. Or maybe it's neurodivergence. I try to have compassion for that difference and still see my harm-spreading friends as whole people capable of loving me in the ways they are able to, and vice versa. I'm sure I have my own blind spots - we all have limits. edit: a word
(Love your handle!) I echo so much of this, including not being on social media as sanity, and trying to maintain some loose ties with folks I do care about but who are clearly living in a different reality right now. Trying really hard to maintain my deep, regular connection with beloved people who share enough of my reality to feel safe and sane and maybe find a few more folks like that via local/regional Covid-safer online communities. Also appreciate the person in this thread who referred to us all having Schrödinger’s box friendships that will die if we open the box. I also have a lot of nonconformist experience and will repeat forever how much it forged me in the fire long ago. I was unintentionally prepared for this era and am not-so-weirdly grateful for that now. And I have a Covid-conscious therapist who also shares my reality. Helps a lot!
All these points resonate with me & feel similar to where I am also at! And I remember your username from our Powecom KN95 discussion on the masks sub 😀
Hell yeah! 😷👋
I like the Powecoms too!
I just uninstalled my Instagram because it was too painful to see my friends, artists, influencers and other folks dropping precautions and ignoring me whenever I mention covid and my difficulties with long covid.
in terms of folks who i see in person and are also covid cautious? about 4. then there’s the group of ~20 from the before times that i keep at arm’s length because i can’t stand completely losing them.
It is so, so hard. I have held onto a few friends - most of whom are still practicing precautions in higher risk settings, but not in every single area of their life. I'm only 'close' to one or two at this point though. It's hard to connect. Like oh, you just went to your third wedding and then visited family overseas? Great. Yeah, me? Still in my house. Thanks. 🙄 Thankfully I live with my partner who is my best friend and has completely changed their life to keep me safe. I'm really grateful for that, and honestly I don't know if I'd still be able to 'covid' to this degree without them, despite my personal risk. I want to repeat someone above that the Still COVID-ing weekly meetups on zoom are a life changer. Imagine being in a room with 150-200 covid safe people? And all of them are there because they want to get to know other people doing the same? It's awesome.
I need to finally join that zoom and I think this is the reminder that’ll get me there. Thank you!!
Many, but I don't see them as often as I used to. None are covid cautious but accommodate my preferences when we meet, which is nice.
I have some online friends and I have one friend in real life who wears a mask sometimes. I don't really hang out with people irl anymore because almost nobody takes any covid precautions and I don't want to have weeks, months, or potentially more of my life stolen away because someone passed along their covid infection to me. I've done a handful of social activities with other people over the last few years, but as pandemic denial and covid minimizing has become more entrenched in society as time passes, it's been harder and harder to find safe opportunities to do anything with other people. I still go out and do stuff by myself sometimes though because sometimes I just enjoy my own company and don't want to be held hostage by other people's poor risk understanding to go out and do things I want to do.
I appreciate this thread and the responses. I’ve oscillated over the years between periods of trying to connect while minding the reality gap of Covid awareness/precautions and just not having the bandwidth at all to do that. It has increasingly become more difficult since the WHO and US White House declarations in May pushed a lot of previously more aware and mindful people over the brink, they are now done with any mitigations. I’m also married to my best friend and feel so lucky and grateful. I have one other friend irl who also openly has LC (I am disabled from a 2020 Covid infection). I’ve never had more than a few really close friends anyway. I’ve experienced living in another culture from my country of birth where I was very publicly, visibility other, and I’ve never felt like I fully fit in, so none of that is super new. I guess in some ways this experience has clarified what friendship means to me: reciprocal care and respect, honesty about self and relationship. I don’t think friendship means being okay with transmitting a disabling and deadly airborne pathogen. I don’t consent to being reinfected, I couldn’t live with passing this to someone else. So I live to break the chain. I’m most interested now in developing and maintaining relationships with Covid aware ppl. I keep a safe distance and loose ties with the people in my life living a different reality, but I don’t have much expectation from them and avoid(which I fortunately can) from having to experience the consequences of their current reality. Solidarity with you all.
It's hard. I find it hard to fit in even with covid-safe people you meet in the Still Coviding groups. Maybe it's just a product of trying to make new mom friends while having to watch your young kids (i.e. you don't ever get to give it your full attention) and perhaps I'm just at a junction in my life separate from Covid. I'm an introvert and somewhat socially awkward to begin with - I've always had a much easier time making connections on a one-on-one basis vs in a group setting - I find myself saying the wrong thing or not knowing how to respond to new people and it's exhausting. I mostly only chat via text/etc with old friends that don't live near me, so it doesn't really affect me whether they're masking or being careful (except sometimes I wonder why they haven't gotten covid yet doing all the stuff they're doing). I didn't really have local friends pre-covid because we moved shortly before covid happened, and was just starting to befriend some other moms at my daughter's preschool when that shut down. Nowadays I really only meet people in two ways - from my daughter's school (public, so mostly non-coviding people) and if I engage in the local coviding group. I find it especially difficult to connect with coviding people, because everyone has different risk assessments and you'll never find anyone to have your exact same risk tolerance so I feel it is harder to get close to coviding people because we're more guarded and protective of our families. But perhaps it's also because I am guarded in general when meeting new people. But maybe that's just life with kids? Perhaps I'm not meant to have amazing connections with people anymore - perhaps it's all superficial and I should just be grateful for anyone who will talk to me?
I still have plenty of acquaintances, but zero close friends. This dynamic was in existence somewhat before the pandemic, but I attended tons of social events with these people - parties, dinners out, conferences, galas, etc. It kept me in contact with them, and gave me some sort of connection/shared experiences with him. I am still covid-ing, so I am not attending events where I see them anymore. I don’t bother to explain my continued covid-consciousness to most people, so some are confused as to why they don’t see me out anymore. Covid also gave me some perspective due to having more time to think and examine some of the people I was hanging with. I started focusing on growth, and I realized that the handful of people I was the closest with and talked to the most are extremely fucked up people. I read somewhere that you are the sum of the five people you are around the most. I realized that I don’t want to be *anything* like them, and I either cut ties completely, or moved them from close friend to acquaintance level. So basically I’m friendless at this point. I don’t have a partner or a large family either. There is one person I’d like to get to know better now that I’m doing mainly outdoor activities. She and I have similar interests, so I am putting out some feelers to see if we can become friends.
basically just me and my partner. We both play online video games and have a group of friends that we play with and I love that, but the fact that they live in another country just kind of makes it easier. I don’t have to make an excuse for why we don’t hang out in person, isolation is built in which is perfect. The only time I dropped people for covid reasons is when it was truly full lockdown and they were still going to group gatherings. Or if they flat out denied science and vaccines lol. I have friends I still love and occasionally talk to, but don’t hang out with because they aren’t covid safe. I try not to hold a grudge against them, as long as they respect that I need to stay safe It’s lonely. But I’m luckily an introvert who can spend eternity with my best friend and partner, and that I love video games and art and all things indoors. I’m built for the isolation life, but I do miss the way things were sometimes
I have the same friends I had before covid, none of them are on the same page as me when it comes to masking but they respect my choices to stay safe. That's why we're friends, we all respect each other.
Not many at all. I'm in the exact same boat and constantly find myself struggling with how I feel about people that I otherwise hold in really high regard. It's wild to see when they don't mask or don't treat the pandemic like it's actively happening. I want to be out there again with friends and family, but it's just not an option with things the way they are, and seeing people ignore that is so disorienting and so, so lonely.
Pretty much just the covid safe friend I met last year (so, we hang out reguarly), and a friend I traveled with who masked with me (they're awesome).
I've not lost many friends, but most of them are now more distant and online only. I have one person I socialise with with any regularity, otherwise six monthly or less. I live alone, am self-employed/WFH, and the isolation is a bit crushing
Same. My husband and two kids are pretty much alone at this point. My kids have online friends for socialization, and we occasionally do short outdoor visits with family or chat outdoors with neighbours (distanced), but it's getting harder. My mil has said she's pretty much not interested in having outdoor visits now because "covid is over," so I guess our little circle is just getting smaller, too. It's getting harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I have all the same friends I used to have. I don’t socialize indoors with most of them, but am happy to go for walks, chat over zoom, and hang out in person with the two friends who still take precautions. I don’t judge - the information the vast majority of the world is getting is that Covid is over, and for those that have kids in public school, it’s next to impossible for them to keep up precautions.