An Abundance of Covid Cooties
Dear Em and Lil,
In the last couple months, most of the people I know have gotten a lot more lax about quarantining and social distancing, and so have I. Of course I feel guilty about seeing groups of friends and family in person, but I also feel guilty about saying no to people, which comes off like you don't trust them. Any tips on turning down invitations during a pandemic without sounding holier than thou?
-2020 Typhoid Mary
LIL: As an authority in the area of guilt, I have been able to isolate several specific strains. The type of guilt you’re dealing with here is the kind where you know what you should be doing differently, but you don’t want to do it, and instead hope is that continuing to do the same thing, but feeling bad about it, will be a good enough replacement for actually changing your behavior. This type of guilt lets us off the hook a little too easily. Feeling guilty isn’t helping you here; neither is talking about how guilty you feel.
That said, this is a problem that so many of us are navigating, especially if, like me, you live in a place with four seasons! It’s in our bones to want to live it up at the end of the summer, because winter is so damn long. Luckily, one thing that seems to be true about this virus is that being outside in small groups is pretty safe. If we can recalibrate our fun-meters so that a summer 2020 walk, or sit, in nature is equivalent to a summer 2019 bar, beach, or festival, we can still feel like we’re having the adventures we crave!
When iffy invitations come up, you can try suggesting alternate options or extra layers of safety. Since you’re worried about sounding mistrustful, put it on yourself: “I was just in a crowded place while I was running errands,” or “I’m supposed to be isolating ahead of a non-optional activity in a few weeks.” Be prepared for pushback, though, and people telling you it’s fine and they don’t mind. You need to get used to gracefully standing your ground. We’re all pretty tired of hearing, and saying, “we’ll just have to wait and see.” So any specifics you can give will help. That might mean telling loved ones you’ll be able to hang out in two weeks, or only at a certain place, or after you get a COVID test. On the other hand, especially if people around you aren’t taking things seriously, it might mean saying, “I can’t figure out how to do this halfway, I always end up breaking all the rules, so I just have to cold turkey not make any in-person plans until social distancing is lifted.” That’s on the extreme end, but for some people, it might be the best option.
My last suggestion: you can still have that small inner circle of people you see in person where you maybe don’t worry about social distancing. Right now, figure out exactly who that is. Then, you can have a wider circle of people that you see in person outdoors. I suggest figuring this out now, not because I want you to (to quote one of my friends) “Marie Kondo your social life,” but so you can prioritize seeing those second-circle people a lot while it’s still nice out, and save Zoom for when it’s the only option.
EM: Lil, while reading your response, I had a brief moment of thinking that you were friends with Marie Kondo. I say, DO kick those acquaintances to the curb!
Onto your question, Typhoid Mary. It is super important that we all continue to social distance. It is important not just for keeping ourselves healthy, but doing our best to uphold the health of the community. That being said, I think it is much more helpful to think of our actions on a spectrum of risk rather than calling some actions “safe” and others “unsafe”. For instance, you can say that having a couple folks in your backyard is a 3/10 risk, whereas going to a rave would be a 10/10 risk. There is no such thing (bar living as a bubble boy) as being 100% COVID safe, but there are measures that we can all take to be COVID safer.
I don’t think you need to worry about sounding holier than thou. We have all been receiving a heavy dose of shame from social media, and if your friends have somehow not gotten the message, it is probably for the best that they are shame-reminded of the severity of the pandemic. Like Lil says, it can be helpful to reframe invite declines from “your cooties are making me unsafe,” to “I want to keep my cooties away to help you stay safe.”
Finally, you don’t need an excuse to reject an invitation! “I’m not up for it today” is always better than making something up, like, “Uh, sorry, my dad is going into labor!” You can give a reason not to meet, but remember that you are perfectly entitled to not explain yourself.
