Introvert in Isolation - 17/04/2020
Despite government official social distancing measures, human beings are by inherent nature, quite a gregarious bunch. It is no wonder then, that being limited to their houses away from their friends, they have found a multitude of ways (some may even say too many) of communicating with one another through means of video calling apps and various forms of social media. This has lead to a really quite impressive onslaught of creativity in the form of pub quizzes, tik toks and various challenges. Thus far as a family we have designed and participated in several quizzes, watched Netflix “together”(?) on ‘Netflix Party’, ran 5K to raise money for charity, played keepy up with some loo roll and my brother even ate cereal with a razor (the less said about that last one the better probably). Far from having nothing to say as none of us have been doing anything with ourselves for the past month, I would argue that this quarantine has really brought out people’s innovative side in a way that could even be described as endearing.
In fact, it really begs the question: why aren’t we doing this all the time? Sure a slightly awkward and empty FaceTime call last night with my grandparents who I speak to maybe once a year could be the answer to that question, but if there are all these ways of connecting with one another, why do they only seem to be sky rocketing now? Why has it taken a pandemic forcing us into familial confinement to get us to actually spend time together? Why are we wasting time in meetings that could be conducted from our own place of work or even the kitchen table? Why are we always saying we ‘must check up on her and see how she’s doing’ when we can literally see how she (whoever ‘she’ is) is doing with just a few taps on a digital screen?
Sure I think we’re all looking forward to the day when we can actually hug our mates again or nip to the pub after work for a pint, but in continuation of trying to see the positives in all of this corona madness, perhaps this period of time will actually have been beneficial to how much we appreciate one another. After having been forced to speak to each other only through screens, perhaps when we’re actually physically together again we’ll spend less time on our mobile screens and actually appreciate the way emotions play out on our friends’ faces. The dimples in their cheeks when they smile because they’re happy to see us, or the way they roll their eyes when we make a stupid pun (again), or the way they cover their mouth when they laugh because they hate their slightly crooked teeth, even though we love them because we know it’s what makes them, well, themselves.
In fact, it really begs the question: why aren’t we doing this all the time? Sure a slightly awkward and empty FaceTime call last night with my grandparents who I speak to maybe once a year could be the answer to that question, but if there are all these ways of connecting with one another, why do they only seem to be sky rocketing now? Why has it taken a pandemic forcing us into familial confinement to get us to actually spend time together? Why are we wasting time in meetings that could be conducted from our own place of work or even the kitchen table? Why are we always saying we ‘must check up on her and see how she’s doing’ when we can literally see how she (whoever ‘she’ is) is doing with just a few taps on a digital screen?
Sure I think we’re all looking forward to the day when we can actually hug our mates again or nip to the pub after work for a pint, but in continuation of trying to see the positives in all of this corona madness, perhaps this period of time will actually have been beneficial to how much we appreciate one another. After having been forced to speak to each other only through screens, perhaps when we’re actually physically together again we’ll spend less time on our mobile screens and actually appreciate the way emotions play out on our friends’ faces. The dimples in their cheeks when they smile because they’re happy to see us, or the way they roll their eyes when we make a stupid pun (again), or the way they cover their mouth when they laugh because they hate their slightly crooked teeth, even though we love them because we know it’s what makes them, well, themselves.
On the other hand, as lovely and sickeningly mushy as all of that sounds, for all of us introverts over here, we’d just finished celebrating all the cancelled social events. Now we’re being roped into MULTIPLE pub quizzes a week and, as I’ve previously alluded to, phone calls with *takes a deep breath* other relatives, external to our immediate household. As if eating dinner with the parents every night wasn’t enough socialising for one day, now I’m expected to talk to other people as well? This is isolation gone mad. The only hope we have is that restrictions will be lifted slowly and maybe somehow we can request to be placed at the end of the queue of people who are allowed out again.
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