![]() ![]() and her family are always invited over but so far she hasn’t accepted because… duh. used to be close with her next-door neighbors, but since the shutdown they still keep throwing parties in their backyard. ![]() How can I hang out with you ever again if I don’t respect how you acted during a global pandemic? It’s over, sis. It’s been too eye-opening I can’t “unsee” people’s baffling behavior and I don’t want it in my life. I’m sure that relationship will repair itself in time - blood is thicker than water after all - but with some ruined platonic friendships, I can’t see going back. The pod broke up and they haven’t spoken in a few weeks. So when another family member, who thinks COVID is all over-hyped, started going to parties and being more social, the sisters got in a huge fight about allowing him to be around the rest of the family. Another friend of mine and her sister had been doing one of those Pod arrangements on the East Coast with extended family, when they suddenly stopped agreeing on the parameters. Especially when the people you start to hate are family members. Thinking like that feels like self-preservation, but it’s also really sad. “I hate people,” she’ll say to me, and I’ll wholeheartedly agree. They are shocked that so many of their friends are still going to the gym, taking their families on vacation, and doing other everyday activities and errands as though there’s not a deadly pandemic happening, while they are legitimately terrified of contracting the virus on a daily basis. I know a couple who are both frontline workers in the health industry. I don’t care if we’ve known each other for 30 years. Personally, I want nothing to do with the latter person. You’re either a person who wears one religiously out in public because you are NOT selfish, care about saving lives, and getting the economy back on track, or you’re a covidiot who refuses to wear one, complains it depletes your CO2, and lights it on fire in front of your state’s capitol building. Take wearing a mask: There are two camps and no middle ground here. When it comes to my physical health, I won’t compromise either. But it’s also necessary for my mental health at a time when I’m having panic attacks several times a week. I’m basically like, Sorry, Charlie, see ya in 2021 or as soon as there’s a vaccine. I have one friend who doesn’t like to text and insists on Zooming. I prefer to write or text with friends to catch up. Like, I have a lot of anxiety right now and can’t deal with Zoom calls unless I absolutely have to for work (plus I’ve been cutting my own hair so badly I look like Joe Dirt). We’re losing friends left and right because we have new non-negotiable standards when it comes to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. ![]() But it seems like for many of us, coronavirus has been the straw that finally broke the camel’s back or put the nail in the coffin (or pick any other idiom you fancy). Sure, many of us with chronic illness already have had to weed out toxic or unsupportive people from our lives who “don’t get it.” And surely our loyalties have been tested the last four years over political differences. The global pandemic is testing our relationships like never before. Oh, did I say friend? I meant former friend. In the past, I saw that proverb as inspiring words my dad might say to me when I told him about my dream of opening a hot dog joint named “Dibby’s Hot Diggity Dogs.” But in the era of COVID-19, when a friend wrote this same proverb on an Instagram post about sending children back to school, my blood boiled and I immediately unfollowed her.
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