The COVID caveat: handy for a whinge, not so great for friendship

Have you heard of the COVID caveat? It’s what I use to describe that by now familiar tic in conversation when someone prefaces a whinge with “Of course, there are people doing it so much worse than me”. The COVID caveat is not borne of a bad impulse: there’s something rather lovely about seeking to acknowledge one’s own privilege in a moment so dire for so many. But my theory is that the COVID caveat is precisely what has made friendships so hard to maintain throughout the pandemic.

Friendship, after all, is about commonality. A good friendship grows many branches, but it starts on common ground. A workplace. A hobby. Birthing babies in the same season. Or, if you’re in year 7 and don’t have any of those, having surnames that begin with the same letter works nicely. Then COVID came along. “We’re all in this together!” was the mantra those first few weeks.

We were all hooked on Tiger King and sending each other videos of church choirs singing in their living rooms. Haven’t seen one of those in a while. But it turns out COVID didn’t elide differences. It accentuated them. This was true on a continent-to-continent level, and also on a house-to-house level.

My neighbour, for instance, with whom I’d bonded over our prematurely born babies, had a very different pandemic to mine. Both her and her husband’s families live nearby. We saw his sister pushing the kids on the swing on Sunday mornings, so the parents could have a sleep-in or, a few hours later, her dad cooking up burgers on the barbecue. Her husband worked from home; mine didn’t. I developed stories in my head, probably quite unfair ones, about why she had it easier than me, and what happened next was inevitable: we drifted apart.

Then there were all my friends in Sydney, for whom – after a scary few months mid-year – life resumed its normal rhythms. It became harder to talk to them, too, and their COVID caveats, while well meaning, only served to highlight the chasm of experience between us. Everyone has lost something through this. Many millions have lost loved ones. But friendships, when lost, are also something to mourn.

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Now a close friend in Australia, one I’d managed to retain, is going through something which, though not alike in case numbers, nonetheless shares contours with my 2020 in America. She texted me today: “Isn’t it weird that your life is opening up and that ours is closing?” In a sure sign of our friendship’s enduring power, I’d had the exact same thought a few minutes before.

It is weird, and also sad, of course. For two people who had lived remarkably similar lives, and had started a friendship based on shared professional interests, 2020 was a test. What happens when one person is growing her business and the other can’t leave the house?

Now we’re back again, hurtling through different universes. I’m not worried for us. Our friendship survived the same trajectory, in the other direction, for the last year-plus.