From Baths To Married At First Sight Australia: Your Lockdown Crutch Decoded

Lockdown may have been introduced as an emergency measure, but by now it’s become a lifestyle. The end may be in sight, but after nearly a year of restrictions, the ‘new normal’ feels more normal than new. We haven’t made this adjustment without a little help, however. Whether you’ve got through the last 12 months by leaning on a labradoodle or drowning your sorrows in lengthy baths, here’s what your lockdown crutch reveals...

REALITY TV

You can’t get enough Drag Race, you’re hooked on Bling Empire and you’re so intimate with the contestants of Married At First Sight Australia that, if any of those relationships last the course, you’ll be volunteering to give a speech at their golden wedding anniversary. Reality TV gives you lust, intrigue and drama without you ever having to encounter another human. As addictions go, this one is a surefire sign that you need your social life back.

PETS

Whether it’s a bulldog called Gloria or a Russian Blue known as Mr Business, no one appreciates you like your pet – and over the last year, you’ve really appreciated it back. This can be clearly seen on WhatsApp, where a friend barely has to ask what you’ve been up to before you’re sending six new photos of your cat lying in a sunbeam, or your dog cocking up an ear in a whimsical manner. If this is you, with affection and love on tap, you’re winning at lockdown. The rest of us are just jealous.

VOICENOTES

It started as a novelty – replacing a text with a quick recording that you could send to a friend. But with hours to kill and no colleagues to chat to, you’re now clocking up 10-minute monologues and loving it. If you’re really committed to the sound of your own voice, the next step is Clubhouse, the new social media platform where you can exchange recordings with people all day long and even lecture to a ‘room’ of strangers. The question is: is anyone actually listening?

BATHS

Could deep hot water be your crutch? ‘I’m like a sad mermaid,’ as the novelist Christina Sweeney-Baird put it on Twitter – she’s just one of many who are getting their comfort from daily baths. It might not be as luxurious as a spa day, but a soak does seem to cheer us up: a 2018 study of people with depression found that regular baths were associated with a moderate but persistent lift in mood.

THE NEWS

While for some it’s to be avoided at all costs, for others, the news is as moreish as crack. You’re listening to current affairs podcasts; you’re getting furious on Twitter; you’re showing up for Government press conferences like a Swiftie at the first stream of a new album. You know the difference between Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty, between antibodies and antigens, between Pfizer and Oxford. You don’t have a science background but, if suddenly forced to sit an exam in virology, you’d be quietly confident. What’s it all about? Trying to take control in an out-of-control world.

SHOPPING

Have you heard of beige gold? It’s the new name for... cardboard, which is now (almost) as hard to source as a precious metal. That’s because the UK’s supply has all been delivered to your house, holding clothes, fitness gadgets and that spider- catcher you saw in a pop-up ad. Many of us have gone mad for online shopping and, if you’ve met your local courier so many times that you know their middle name, it’s probably because making purchases is giving you a dopamine hit. Time to change the password on your PayPal account – although getting out of lockdown might just do the trick too.