How do we rebuild our social lives after the lockdown?

IWOKE on Sunday morning with an absolutely thumping headache. I’d overdone it, ever so slightly, on a Zoom call with a group of pals the night before. The five of us are spread around the country and, reminded that we were scheduled to drink and laugh together that weekend, a date put in the diary long before the pandemic hit, we decided to embrace the virtual equivalent: getting well and truly blootered in the spare room while our partners sit next door, TV cranked up, pretending not to hear it. It was, we reasoned, the next best thing. Almost as soon as we went into lockdown, most of us started waxing lyrical about how good that first pint would taste, when we were allowed back in the pub. Now that day has come, I realise how accustomed to socialising via conference call software I have become.

Because, it turns out, post-lockdown socialising is not the open-air utopia I had hoped. It comes with its own still-evolving etiquette. Because, if we’re still trying to wrap our heads around how we feel about staycations and Saturday nights in the pub, it makes sense that our pals won’t have figured it out either.

Back in Phase 2, which seems like an eternity ago now, I met a pal in the west end. We swung by a cafe, open for takeaway, and ordered coffees. We did that awkward dance where we kept 2m away from each other, even as we picked up our respective drinks at the door. I took a sip of mine: I had his oat milk, he had my full-fat dairy milk. Well, I thought, I guess I drink oat milk now.

Socialising has been full of awkward moments like that as we normalise keeping a safe distance from people we’d usually throw ourselves into the arms of. I would’ve never classed myself as a hugger before coronavirus hit.

During lockdown, we had to navigate overzealous loved ones seeing how far we were willing to bend the rules. But now, as we get our first real tastes of freedom, it’s less about stringently sticking to the rules and setting our own personal boundaries.

Some friends were raring to go to a beer garden, others raised an eyebrow when I said I was heading along to meet a couple of workmates for an al fresco pint (which, having enjoyed the novelty of a draught beer, I am not sure I would rush back to).

It might take time to return to business as unusual but the challenges of living, and trying to enjoy yourself, in a pandemic are far from over.

Maybe it’s not time to cancel by Zoom subscription just yet.