Why Pandemic Ghosting Could Haunt Us for Years
The relationships we dispose of these days may not be as easily retrieved as we may imagine
Imagine you’re on a desert island with one other person. While you’re on the other side of the island gathering coconuts, your friend spots a helicopter, waves it down, hops aboard and sails off to safety, forgetting you completely.
To many of us, pandemic isolation has been so acute that we feel a friend’s ghosting as intensely as if we had been abandoned on that island.
That is why I am convinced that relationships which have been unceremoniously terminated during these high-stress years may never bounce back.
Many of us have had friends disappear, abandon us without so much as a post-it worth of explanation only to reappear years later to reconcile. But those were in the B.C. days — Before CoVid. Anyone inexplicably abandoned in B.C. days most likely had a collection of other relationships which were not nearly as strained. I would argue that these days almost all our relationships are a bit strained and without the benefit of the usual social support of community, being left alone, now more than ever, causes us to feel truly and completely alone.
And it’s dark.
And it lasts.
And the light at the end of the tunnel is hard to imagine.
So, to those prone to hit the DELETE button on your friendships I urge you to stop, hit the PAUSE button on your own impulses and see if you can access from deep within an old and rusty tool which may come in handy if you hope to retain that strained relationship.
What tool is that?
Open Communication.
And it likely starts not with a text or an email but with a phone call. The old-fashioned way.
You know, listen for dial tone, wait through those rings til you hear a familiar voice on the other end saying: Hello.
Roland Tec is performing his solo Zoom show, A Nagging Feeling Best Not Ignored through July 27th. https://www.hearmeoutmonologues.com/a-nagging-feeling
