How to lose friends after lockdown
The triggers that could test even the strongest of bonds
So here we are in post-lockdown (ish), able to meet up with a select few of our friends – the thing we’ve been dreaming of for the past four months.
Still, proceed with caution is my advice. It was possible to alienate friends in lockdown (things that did not help included a Zoom background change to a window overlooking Lake Como) and post-lockdown it’s even easier to fall out. Here are some of the ways…
Re-entry lists. You had an unspoken understanding that you would be first on each other’s. However, it turns out your Oldest Friends are busy until mid August: Helen and Mark, the people in the village who are having an anniversary party, Simon and Sally and the Whatsits are all ahead of you in the queue. In the chart of caring you are hovering at number eight. They’re not even pretending this is about family obligations, you are just pretty far down the list.
Other people’s children. Alternatively, we’re all super eager to meet up, but navigating the new restaurant rules is such a nightmare, so this means us going to their house where their four YA children will be present at all times. Remember, years ago, when your friends got together and wanted you to witness just how In Love they were, even when you were eating? Well, this is arguably worse. Also, we have not spent four months dreaming of conversations about subjects other than antibodies and air bridges in order to spend all evening talking about whether wearing a sombrero is racist. Love their kids, but this is a bit like giving up drink for four months and then, when we eventually rock up to the bar, being offered a Tizer-based punch.
Post-lockdown body. Some of us have put on the corona stone, and some of us have been doing back-to-back Adrienne, Joe Wicks etc and are leaner than before. This means there is now a fatter-fitter divide among friends who used to be more or less on the same page, weight-wise, and that spells trouble. To the fatters, the fitters will not have been playing by the rules – we were all supposed to be in this together, after all, not some of us milking the national emergency for personal gain. Be prepared for scratchy exchanges like: “What’s wrong with you, why aren’t you eating the cake I specially made?” And “When did you start wearing white jeans?’ Just be aware.
Cooking and other domestic skills. As we know only too well, lockdown roused the dormant, competitive Martha Stewart in lots of people, but not everyone lasted the course. Now we’re getting back into each other’s kitchens and discovering that some of our friends are evangelical born-again cooks. They find it hard to fathom why, when we were never less than 10ft from a cooker for the best part of four months, we didn’t at least learn how to make profiteroles. And that’s just part of the problem. With all that time on their hands, many of our friends have painted signature walls. Planted vegetables. Fixed up the garden shed (now a delightful gazebo) and so on. For those of us more in the cleared-out-a-cupboard bracket, this is lowering.
Marriage comparing. Some couples now operate like a crack SWAT team. Throw them a challenge and they will handle it together, his skills plus her skills: she grows it, he cooks it; he cleans, she shops. If you’re still squabbling over whose turn it is to do the washing up, you may find yourself hating them.