Our modern get-togethers
The idea of video conferencing in the service of social distancing doesn’t appeal to everyone. When my 11-member book club proposed replacing our animated get-togethers marked by excellent desserts, generous pours of wine, and no lack of opinions on a group-read book chosen by that month’s host with an electronic platform, I was not enthusiastic.
It’s understandable why we are holding business meetings online, facing an iPad screen displaying rectangular images of co-workers earnestly holding forth in their home offices or at cleared-off kitchen tables.
But when a gathering is social, there are all sorts of reasons to balk. In these stressful times, the need to learn how to operate yet another online system can seem exhausting. Many of us have endured enough challenges since the coronavirus took over without having to get familiar with yet more technology.
Anybody with balky bandwidth at home—often brought on by multiple users of Wi-Fi at the same time—will be distressed with its skittery effect
on video communication.
And people who have no issues whatsoever about meeting face-toface may not want to be on camera; the images are often unflattering and too close for comfort (a more attractive image can be displayed by elevating the computer or iPad screen so you’re not looking down at it).
When the day of our book club’s Google Hangouts meeting arrived, I was unusually concerned about hair, makeup, and what to wear, decisions that barely cross my mind in preparing for our in-person gatherings. It’s not like this was going to be a high school yearbook portrait.
Still, I made an effort, pulling on a decent black knit top and cropped pants (although many don’t worry about pants in online conferencing, I figured I’d feel better about it all if I came to the table fully dressed). In keeping with the spirit of our group, I poured myself a generous glass of bourbon, signed in, and said hi to everyone.
It took a while to get participants where they needed to be in order to see and hear each other (inevitable with just about any video conferencing system being used). Once that was done, we checked in with members on their current situations (two had lost their jobs since our last gathering, others were adjusting to the continual presence of high schoolers and college students in their homes). Then we moved on to discussing The Dearly Beloved by Cara Walls, which—no surprise—more of us than usual had found time to read.
The book chat lasted for a couple of hours. It was, for the most part, OK— an intelligent and probing discussion of a thought-provoking novel that took the author 13 years to complete.
Still, I missed watching my friends’ body language, their re-arranging of pillows on the host’s couch, their jaunts to the dining room to enjoy another slice of chocolate bundt cake and to see if there was any pinot grigio left.
Casual offhand remarks were lost in the less-than-topnotch sound transmission. Quiet side conversations, often the best moments of our in-person meetings, were too distracting to be part of the evening.
A more subliminal reaction for me, stupid though it is, is that embracing this helpful but artificial means of electronic communication seems like a betrayal of the original. Video conferencing in the age of coronavirus exudes an illogical but no less real feeling of defeat, of giving in to the demands of the virus, of acquiescing to its superiority.
This has a lot to do with why people are rushing to rejoin others in society, even though it’s pretty obvious that we’re nowhere near having gained the upper hand on the virus to believe such gatherings to be safe.
I am seldom the victim of magical thinking, the belief that one’s thoughts, wishes and desires will influence the external world. But, even if cold-hearted and scientifically sound logic tells us differently, there’s an emotional component that creeps into my thoughts, urging me not to give in.
It’s the same sort of convoluted mindset that influences others’ refusals to wear masks in public, or practice social distancing, and want to dine in restaurants in awkward, spaced-out situations that can’t be much fun.
If the next book club gathering is online—it’ll be a discussion of Elie Wiesel’s Night—I’ll be there. But I’m still not ready to embrace the idea that this is how the world is going to work from now on. Hanging on to a spark of resistance is akin to hanging on to hope.