The Great Freedom Day Friendship Divide: What Do We Do When Our Friends Don’t Act The Way We Think They Should?

How did you celebrate Freedom Day? We marked the occasion by harshly judging our friends. Hurrah! Not really, but it did feel a bit like that.

Monday 19 July saw the nation divided between those glad to see restrictions lifted and those concerned it was premature, due to the rising number of infections. The ‘pingdemic’ had reached an almighty crescendo: more than 500,000 people were pinged in the first week of July by the NHS Covid 19 app – a 46% increase on the week before. Between 8 and 15 July, 600,000 were pinged. What with that and the number of WhatsApp groups we wish we’d never joined, our phones have been red hot – and friendships have been caught in the crossfire. Many people haven’t been able to square their friends’ actions with what they feel is appropriate. Friends who’ve broken self-isolation, for example. Who’ve sent their kids to school with potential symptoms. Who’ve taken risks and cut corners, sometimes out of sheer desperation, but it has caused divisions and rifts. It’s got ugly.

Even though the pandemic has been a shared experience, it has highlighted the differences in our lives, too. Everyone’s priorities have shifted, and not always in the same way. What if you don’t approve of the decisions your friends are making when it comes to things like wearing a face mask, for example? It’s another minefield when it comes to alerting people of the contact we have had. It’s everyone’s responsibility to assess what their friends need to know about where they’ve been and who with.

That said, no one wants to cause unnecessary worry, and one person’s idea of a Covid moshpit might be another’s walk in the park. Many business owners are complaining that the ongoing hyper-vigilance is causing unnecessary chaos and staff shortages. Meanwhile, many who are still physically vulnerable to the virus are terrified – and think venues like nightclubs are just asking for trouble. What do we do when our friends don’t act the way we think they should? Can you live and let live when there’s a global pandemic? And bearing in mind we’re all still a bit (a lot) socially inept thanks to lockdown, how do we even begin to broach the subject?

Well, blurting it out is no bad thing. Tell your friends everything, honestly – where you’ve been, what makes you comfortable, what you feel is appropriate – with the caveat that you’re out of practice, as we all are, at speeches. Good friends will listen. Offer them the same courtesy in return.

Be respectful. If a friend questions your behaviour, see it as coming from a place of fear and confusion, rather than any desire to shame you. Don’t take it personally. It’s about trying to look after each other and ourselves at a weird time, for which we have no precedent. It’s about accepting a degree of discomfort right now, and rolling with it.

The Government advice – and behaviour, for that matter – has hardly been consistent. Every week brings another onslaught of decision-making for an exhausted nation. We all feel a bit rubbish at life right now. Everyone will feel like the Covid police some days, and the pandemic’s worst citizen on others, but if we focus on learning to speak and listen to each other again – properly, lovingly – we’ll get there. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Nor was freedom.

Or friendship.