With Lockdown 3, Friendships Are Reaching Breaking Point

If ever we needed to double down on our efforts, it’s now. As the pandemic reaches its peak, we are being told that this terrifying, NHS-bashing third spike is ‘the worst point of this epidemic for the UK’, by Chris Whitty. As it brings yet more isolation for so many, I wonder whether our friendships are being stretched to their limits, too.

Tensions certainly feel like they are running high. One friend messaged me to ask if I was still sending my son to nursery, even though her kids were no longer in school. It felt judgemental. My worst instincts rushed forward. She’s jealous, I thought. She doesn’t want to do home-schooling again and she’s taking it out on me. I had to have a word with myself. But that sudden paranoia – that fragility and anxiety – seems like the tip of a very large, looming iceberg. She’d hit a nerve with my own conflicted feelings. My own guilt.

Anyone else feeling constantly guilty and not knowing why? Is it a motherhood thing, a survivor thing, what? I’m starting to feel the strain of making appointments to talk to friends, like they’re a work obligation rather than a quick riff. I know some people are finding it hard to maintain friendships with people who are bending the rules. ‘How do I freeze her out?’ one friend asked of someone she knew who’d had a big New Year’s Eve round at her flat. How do you even freeze someone out these days? Mute them on WhatsApp?

What I am also feeling, increasingly, is a massive phoney every time I roll out the same old sign-off – on emails, messages, phonecalls, whatever. You know the one. ‘When all this madness is over, we’ll drink champagne together/have a lunch that lasts three days/dance naked on a pub piano...’ (insert joyous fleshly activity as you see fit). How many times can we say it before it starts to wear thin and feel like an empty promise – a mere placation?

But even though I see the strains, I do believe friendship will ultimately rise to meet the challenge – mountainous as it is. Friendship is love and love conquers all. Even bastard viruses. The question is, how do we keep our friendships alive for the final push as the vaccine rolls out?

We need to pull out all the stops. Click on that surprise little gift. Set up a fresh WhatsApp group. Ambush yourself with a gloriously unplanned chat. Go out for your exercise and call someone you haven’t spoken to for ages but miss from the days of Going Out-Out. I’ve done this a few times over the past few weeks and it has been initially terrifying and then – delightful.

It’s a pandemic, it’s not about your social lives, was the message from one doctor in a recent news report. I was insulted; it seemed so reductive. The recovery from this has to be across our whole lives. Lockdown has taken its toll on our mental health – and a lot of that has to do with isolation. The existence of support bubbles for those who live alone, are single parents, or have tiny babies is surely an acknowledgement of the importance of friends. Let’s dig deeper, grit our teeth, and maybe call that someone you wouldn’t usually call. I dare you. It might just be the shot in the arm your life needs. The Good Old Times have to evolve into the Good New Times sooner or later, after all.