Lessons from Lockdown and Chewing-Gum Conversations
Tags: Friendship, Diary, Internet, Coronavirus, Loneliness

Maybe you’ve been thinking it too. A rant? Social analysis? Who knows.

Photo by Josh Nuttall on Unsplash

Video Killed the Radio Star. But Sometimes the Internet Doesn’t Cut It.

I believe everyone with internet access has, at one point, heard a grand reflection on the wonders of the internet, and all the amazing ways tools we gain from it, and the life-changing connections we can have on it.

And this is true. Under social distancing guidelines, people are at home learning languages, taking courses for career and skill, becoming knowledgeable in different fields, and staying connected with loved ones. People are dating online, learning how to cook, and keeping updated on information from governments and public health officials.

But the internet really is not as amazing as we all believed it would be. I would rather a class in a crowded lecture hall, full of all the natural interruptions of phones, and awkward silences and laughter and interaction. I would rather hugs and kisses and bumping into people because I can’t walk in a straight line, and physical space being shared. I would love to catch my regular bus, and get dressed for university, and listen to my podcasts, or Qur’an, or my thoughts for those sacred forty minutes everyday. The internet cannot replicate these things.

This isn’t me mourning all the things I can no longer do, rather it’s a way for me to celebrate what I have had, and be grateful for my favourite things. I will say, pre-pandemic, I was already in the habit of fawning over all of the small blessings in my life, as a productive counter to my anxiety. But now, in the quiet of my home, I can reflect on them with all the affection and love I have unleashed in a beautiful way. Consider my own horn tooted.

Superglue V SelloTape

This break has given me chance to find out who I really love and who loves me. I am discovering who I can genuinely connect with, and who I share the same energy with. Listening to a podcast on friendship, I learnt amazing things about the implications of who you choose to share yourself with. I had some epiphanies about the journey of life that I want to go on with my friends, and how special it is that I have so few. I think the elitist nature of my friends and I is indicative of our higher aspirations. We’re aiming high, and there’s only so much room on the rocketship.

My opinion is that friends have to align with your worldview. Who you believe you are, where you come from, and where you’re going has to make sense between you both. Your craft and career should be respected by them. The way you choose to live should be something that is soft and warm between you. And you should feel comfortable sharing your most special moments. This is beyond surface-level friendship; call this one for bosom-buddies.

I have only ever drifted apart from one old friend in my life so far. And though I had heard a lot of wisdom about why people come into and leave your life and the reasons and certain people stay, and for how long and what you’re supposed to learn from your time together, it only truly began to make sense recently. The only thing that is missing from a friendship that falls apart is a fundamental superglue. There are a lot of easy-to-find adhesives that bring people together in the first place, but these are not what sticks together true, lifelong friends. They’re more like the SelloTape and BluTack of binding forces. The superglues are the essentials. Worldview, manners, a shared interest, respect and love and loyalty are real binders. The low-grade adhesives are more like when life throws people into the same circumstances. Certain types of friendships come apart quicker than others, and a pandemic shows this fact loud and clear.

Chewing Gum Conversations

Shortly before the world went quiet, I was lamenting to a friend about my dislike for empty, meaningless conversations. This is distinct from small talk or casual banter. I mean conversations where absolutely nothing meaningful is shared, every sentence seems to be a filler, and there’s nothing really being said. She has coined these ‘chewing gum conversations’, and I could not think of a better way to put it myself. I recognise that I am an ‘intense’ person and that my brain operates on 2AM mode way more often than is regular (or necessary), and I do not expect for everyone to be on the same ridiculous meta wavelength as I am all the time. I’ll even admit that some chewing gum conversations are necessary, as a good introduction into a person’s casual personality. Sometimes. Rarely. Honestly? Call me pretentious, but I would prefer (a comfortable) silence.

I am dreading the amount of empty talk I’ll have to hear when the world is back to business. I’m strongly sympathising with the people who are constantly plugged into earphones. At least they choose their own noise.

Pandemic Productivity

A million and one memes and articles have been written on this, but the phenomenon is still fascinating. I am torn between reasoning the need to motivate people whose inconvenience in this situation is no more than simply being at home and the pressure being put on people to excel IN A PANDEMIC. Yes, some people do need a kick up the butt to realise that this is precious time that they will likely never have access to again, and, if they aren’t majorly affected, it would be a good time to invest in themselves, their passions and their futures. But it is truly such a strange flex to show how well you’re coping in a time like this. YouTube is a good example. Beyond genuine, non-self-righteous motivation and regular (but modified) entertaining content, I find that quarantine content is pretty garbage and painful to watch. The concept, to me, is bizarre: watch me and my life while I keep myself busy and document how many things I can do while I’m at home. Because you have nothing to do.

With this being said, I’m not really one to hide my distaste for vlogs and ‘lifestyle’ content in general. Something about it seems strangely self-important to me, assuming that viewers are interested enough in you, your daily routine and your way of living to watch it regularly. It was interesting once upon a time when average people (me) got insight into alternative ways of living or cultural insight, but I began to miss the point in watching a play-by-play of a regular day with little actual entertainment. I think this might be the chewing gum-type filler of online content, but clearly I’m the outlier because this genre of content is incredibly popular, similar to my gripe with reality TV.

Taking it Back to the Good Old Days

As a distraction from big bad anxieties and greater worries I am choosing not to dwell on, I randomly decided to throwback entertainment responsibilities to my child self. Video games! Pointless but addictive with simple storylines that can while away hours of your time. As a child, my personal favourites were time management cooking games; serving up plate after plate of virtual food to virtual customers, earning a random currency used to either renovate your tiny eatery or purchase upgrades to make your dishes cook faster or burn less.

Downloading a game I used to love was a spur-of-the-moment decision, and I thought that I would delete it again after a few hours. Surprisingly, it’s been a few days and I am still savouring the nostalgic distraction that the game is providing me. I have a particular notion about wasting time. There is negative time-wasting, and there is neutral time-wasting. This also applies to procrastination. If I’m ignoring a greater task by scrolling through Instagram or lazing around on the internet in general, this is negative. But if I’m procrastinating by reading, writing, cleaning or cooking, I’m okay with this because it feels less useless and has less harmful fallout than internet time-wasting. Under neutral time-wasting also falls listening to podcasts and now, playing my game. My theory isn’t so strange now that I think about it; it’s actually quite clear that the mental distinction is simply between activities that I benefit from and feel good about afterwards and others where I don’t.

Education Disconnection

Being a student at the moment sucks, and I can say that I am still quite lucky on the grand scale of suckiness. In Ireland, Leaving Cert students were left hanging for weeks with no information about what would happen to the exams that determine their steps into third level education or possibly work. I was a Leaving Cert student last year, and I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t skipped the year that made it possible for me to sit my exams in 2019, I would have lost every ounce of motivation (I was very unstable in the run up to the Big Exams, seemingly always one paper away from losing the plot). Now they are guaranteed exams, after petitions and debates, but many of them are still completing coursework from home.

Studying from home for someone like me lost its novelty very quickly. I love learning, and I love freedom, but I don’t do well with a combination of the two. It felt like a strange space between assigned work and formality and taking an online course out of interest. Fortunately my lecturers and university is quite accommodating given the situation, but naturally, in the spirit of all things first world, I still had to complain about anything that’s less than perfect (but honestly, I realise I am very fortunate and am super grateful for my circumstances).

I’m also lucky that I’m not on the other end of third level education: graduation. Online diplomas and video call graduation ceremonies seem very unceremonious and pretty depressing. Weddings and get-togethers can generally be postponed, but I think that graduations, like funerals, are ceremonies that are time sensitive.

The theme here is that online can’t replace everything. And it shouldn’t.

My open advice to institutions (ready to take counsel from a teenager on Medium) considering the potential efficiency of going digital: please don’t. We do some things in person for a reason. By all means shorten certain meetings into emails, definitely do some catch ups over the phone, but please do not let screens replace human contact. The barriers to reading body language, professionalism and sincerity are going to sting in the long term when they lead to misunderstandings, loss of passion and robotic work. Also, it’s nice to see people sometimes.

Alone And/Or Lonely

I am a lonely person who happens to love being alone. I am also an extrovert, and I love socialising, and I don’t think these two statements are contradictions. I love being alone because my own company is relaxing and safe, and I know that I am generally not likely to do something offensive towards myself. In prolonged socialising I risk being exposed to topics of conversation I’d rather avoid or behaviour that doesn’t sit well with me. I am lonely because though I have many friends and many superglue friendships, not many are close enough to share certain intimacies with, and the aforementioned intensity extends to emotions and values. Being alone was optional, the loneliness was not so much. But the loneliness is such a great well of self-exploration, contentment and development and self-appreciation. So much of my writing comes from these places! So when I am alone, and as I am lonely, there is always something awesome to be drawn from it. This pandemic has given me both.