Friendeavours: old habits that won’t survive the pandemic

‘i’ll never hug again,’ my friend Zoe said on our walk the other day. I looked at her, shocked. Zoe is – was – tactile almost to a fault. She kissed me on the lips once when we hadn’t known each other long and it took me a minute to register that it wasn’t a come-on. But it wasn’t. She’s just very touchy-feely. Touchy-feeliness doesn’t feature in a big way on the roadmap back from lockdown. I expect to encounter it somewhere in 2022, just after the towns of ‘Sharing An Ice Lolly’ and ‘Sweaty Dance Tents’. Mmmm.

‘You’ll never hug again?’ I said. ‘What are you talking about. You’re like a terrier. I couldn’t get you off my arm or leg in the pre-covid days. You love it.’

‘Casually, willy-nilly I mean,’ she qualified. ‘Not like I used to.’

‘Really truly?’

And then she dropped the truth bomb: ‘I never liked it all that much anyway. I felt like it had just become “my thing”.’

A self-fulfilling touchy-feely prophecy. And I felt, weirdly, relief. Because I think on some level I must have known Zoe was forcing it; that naturally she was a more reserved person. And it made me think about the things I’m going to change moving forwards in our brave new normal.

It’s a year since we went into the first lockdown. Worst Anniversary Ever. I wonder what else might come out in the wash, post-pandemic. How many of us will be using re-entry as an opportunity to reset certain things? How many old habits will be affected, amended or abandoned – precisely because we have been shocked out of the usual patterns of behaviour, and had a chance to figure out what really makes us tick? We’ve all been so far out of our comfort zones that we might have seen they were never that comfortable in the first place.

I know I’m going to really value the little things. I’ve tentatively made an outdoor lunch reservation with three friends for April, and you know what I’m looking forward to the most? That moment when we sit down: the look on each other’s faces, the catch of familiar perfume, the shucking off of coats, the settling, the pouring, the where do we begin? Just to be in the company of beloveds. Their smells and human details. The wordless microcommunications that don’t translate via video. I will never take them for granted ever again.

I’m going to treasure the brief encounters, too. The daily ‘hello’ to my postie and delivery drivers. The (please god) upcoming chats with my fave bar staff. Now I see these interactions as not just on the edges of my social life, but a crucial part of it. Woman cannot live on close connections alone.

As a long-time phonecall swerver, my new mantra is: just take the call; just make the call. Whatever else you’re doing. You never know when you might get a chance to chat to that person again. Life is messy. It’s not a secret. Your friends don’t need a neat appointment to see you, where your hair is in place, you’ve sorted out that work worry, laundry isn’t on the floor and the kid isn’t screaming. If you wait for that pristine moment, you’ll lose too much life. You’ll end up at the emotional equivalent of more than two metres.

As for hugs – I’m game. Maybe no skin contact just yet, but you can get a lot of feelings through fabric if you squeeze hard enough. Not with Zoe, though. We’ll get our intimacies back in other ways. ‘You can come round for a glass of wine in the garden soon,’ she said. ‘Bring your own glass.’

‘As a long-time phonecall swerver, my new mantra is: just take the call; just make the call’