Friendeavours: how to navigate friends’ new contact threshold

‘We sense physical proximity looming – and start fretting ’

i don’t know about you, but I’m feeling out of sync with most of my friends. Not just because the channels of communication changed so dramatically for so long, but because going back to ‘normal life’ seems so messy and confusing. Everyone is at a different re-entry point. We’re not just working out how often (and how) to talk to each other as we juggle new routines, we’re trying to emotionally restabilise – communally – while we’re all operating in slightly different directions, at slightly different speeds.

‘It’s like the smoking thing,’ my friend Alex said. ‘You know, when you used to ask people whether they minded you smoking near them? Now you have to ask whether they mind the fact you went into a shop yesterday. Or whether your baby can clamber all over their baby.’

We’ve all had those moments lately, where we’ve been with a friend and sensed physical proximity looming, and we’ve started fizzing and fretting, trying to find the middle ground where both parties are comfortable. ‘Er, is that OK? Do you…?

Is this…? Shall I…?’ we bumble, as we momentarily turn into Hugh Grant trying to fathom an onscreen romance, rather than a friend just trying to be in the presence of a friend.

It’s basically the new etiquette: asking people what their threshold is for contact. It doesn’t help that it feels as though we’ve been left to make individual decisions now. The official guidance seems hazy at best. It’s probably best to agree on these things before we meet up. Send round a quick recce, asking friends where they’re at with the distancing. Just so we’re prepared. After all, the spectrum of contact varies wildly. Some people are back at work (key workers never stopped), some people’s kids are back at school or nursery, some people are shopping, some people are wearing masks, some people are bubbling. (Side point, but does anyone actually know how to bubble? Whenever I say it, I feel like a groovy ’60s rock star – ‘Hey, man, let’s bubble, naked on a lilo’ – ie, clueless. Or maybe that’s just my current fantasy.)

In real life I’m wearing a mask in shops, washing my hands every time I get in, dousing myself in anti-bac, not touching anyone, and trying to do stuff outdoors as much as possible. That’s the bulletin I verbally (or more often, textually) send to friends as a sort of pre-meet health brief. (Meanwhile, my three-year-old is licking the lift doors despite us having daily big chats about the big germs – so I have to add that as a footnote.)

But it’s not just about the physical side of things. Beyond the distancing choices we’re making, we are all grieving in some way. The losses have been huge. Many have lost loved ones. Everyone has lost the world as they knew it. Even when losses are comparable – when people are grieving the world as it was six months ago, for example – they are at various stages of grief, depending on when they started processing the pandemic.

It can be hard to be helpful. Let’s be patient with each other and remember that being ‘there’ for each other is not a science; it’s an art. It’s creatively adapting and expressing what we can give and what we need. We’ll get up to speed.