Recently I was talking to a stranger, and I felt we were getting on brilliantly. I should see more of this person, I thought. Then I realised: I wasn’t really excited to talk to them — after lockdown, I was excited to talk to anybody.
Our pre-pandemic social lives should not be romanticised. People were booked up months in advance; they were overbusy. The happiest social moments were often when the person you’d arranged to meet cancelled. “Do you mind if we postpone?” the message would read. Hell no, I’d think.
Even so, it’s noticeable how slow things have been to bounce back. England’s social distancing rules were lifted on Monday. Many people have remained in a lockdown crouch. We longed for freedom, now we’re not sure how to use it. Maybe this is how being a Brexiter feels.
My diary used to be filled with dinners and drinks. If those events are happening, I’m not invited. Judging by the empty restaurants I pass in London, I’m not alone. This year there is no Eat Out to Help Out discount to lure us back. If you were desperate to see someone after lockdown, you probably saw them when the pub gardens opened in April.
One explanation is that we’re just adjusting. It takes a while to change your mindset, and to organise parties. When scuba divers return from the deep, they move slowly to avoid getting sick. Perhaps we’re collectively decompressing.
Another is that we are rightly wary. Just after England’s lockdown ended, infections were reassuringly low. Now they’re near record levels. The Office for National Statistics estimates that 1 per cent of Britain’s population currently has Covid. More than 600,000 people in England were “pinged” — told to isolate for 10 days by the NHS app — in the week to July 14.
Even if you disable the app, as some people have sadly done, you still have the real risk of being among the 50,000 or so testing positive each day. Goodbye, holidays. Goodbye, walks in the park. I’m not scared of Covid, but I am scared of another 10 days of isolating at home. Then there’s the potential guilt of ruining someone else’s holiday.
There’s an old joke that, in England, justice is open to all, like the Ritz hotel. Well, bars and nightclubs are open to all, like bungee jumping. It depends on risk tolerance.
So we are left to prioritise. Outside activities — sport, coffees, etc — tick. But indoor events have to be really good to merit the risk that they will wipe out my holidays. It would help if restaurants and shops put more effort into ventilating than sanitising. On the Tube, I’ve taken to standing near the doors for airflow. I don’t know if it’s socially acceptable to cancel on somebody because they just might have coronavirus, but that is effectively what I did this week.
We’re missing out. In studies comparing ebooks and print books, those who have read on paper have a better sense of a text’s meaning and chronology. If reading is multisensory, socialising definitely is. Many pandemic Zooms will fade in our memories: they just didn’t engage us as much as in-person meetings.
Will things soon be back to normal? From August 16, double-vaccinated people in England who come into close contact with a positive Covid case will not have to isolate. More people will have antibodies. They will also have been on holidays. Yet more restrictions are possible and the weather will turn colder.
Cut your hair and it grows back the same. Cut your garden and it grows back slightly different. I think our social lives are more like the latter. Working from home is a permanent shift and some socialising relied on people coming after or before work. We will socialise again but with different people and in different places. It may be more local and less work-oriented. Whoever it’s with, it’ll still be fun.
"diary" - Google News
July 23, 2021 at 05:00PM
https://ift.tt/3iEgnAF
Slow-motion return to social life leaves gaps in my diary - Financial Times
"diary" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2VTijey
https://ift.tt/2xwebYA
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Slow-motion return to social life leaves gaps in my diary - Financial Times"
Post a Comment