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Comment by colmvp | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, Covid-19 showed me there are 'friends' and there are friends. It changed my perspective of some of my friendships.

I had some 'friends' who I knew for 10+ years who couldn't spare a single minute over the past 1.5 years to go for a walk or have a coffee outside. As someone who was there for them at various points in life, all I could think of was "really, you know I live alone and don't have an SO like you do, did it seriously never cross your mind how lonely it's been for me?" Unless I made the umpteenth trip to visit him/her, they would make zero effort.

I also had friends including those who just had newborns who made the time every single week to jump on a zoom call just to say hi and to keep each others spirits up.

I probably won't let it destroy the friendships because what is 1.5 years compared to 10+, but at the same time, I'd be lying if I said it was easy to forget.

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> I had some 'friends' who I knew for 10+ years who couldn't spare a single minute over the past 1.5 years to go for a walk or have a coffee outside

You were expecting people to meet you during a pandemic? Or am I misunderstanding?

You're not misunderstanding; some people just don't treat it as seriously as they should.

Going on a walk with masks on was never dangerous, and we knew that starting a few weeks into the US pandemic.

I have friends who work at the CDC that I saw regularly during the pandemic (outdoors, distanced, and masked when necessary).

People react differently during crisis time. Even if government fails to address issues, people will hunker down at home much more. So I'd cut people some slack and figure out what works for them.

Do you think someone is at a serious risk if they physically distance outside while wearing a mask?

And some people get so overzealous about “social distancing” to stop the spread of the virus that they forget why they’re doing it in the first place. You don’t have to “socially” distance yourself from everyone to stop the spread of the virus, Corona can’t be transmitted over video chat.

In person interactions are okay too. I hung out with lots of friends who frequently tested and limited their encounters to those who took the same precautions and none of us caught Corona.

> Corona can’t be transmitted over video chat.

I doubt more than a handful actually thought that

I read the parent poster as saying the unwillingness to meet was not pandemic related.

How would one know? I avoided basically all optional gatherings of more than zero people from mid-March 2020 to late April 2021. I didn’t explain that to anyone; I just didn’t do it.

Indeed, that is what I did, and that is what I expected of others. No one really asked why, the answer was obvious, and when I asked them, they said they were quarantining in the same way.

Well, my experiences match the OP's and it was definitely not very related to pandemic considering that people was not even trying to use Zoom or chat. And this includes people who had no job at the time so "I spend already 8 hours a day on video so please give me a break" were not a majority.

I find it hard to empathize with the idea that you had good friends and wouldn’t even send them an occasional “wish we could hang out; miss you” type message. I can understand why someone might think their true friends were revealed.

One of the culture gaps between USA and other countries is how easily USA conflate fair weather friends/acquaintances with real friendship. Weird from that perspective when someone acts like they want to be friends with everyone because if there is actual commitment then you literally can't be close friends with too many people, you wouldn't have enough time to regularly connect.

I am from Austria, Europe and it takes A LOT for me to call someone a friend.

Partially because having been dropped by a few "friends" in my childhood though.

I must be the weird American who thinks the word "friend" still means something. Acquaintances and Facebook friends don't mean squat to me without aligned interests and/or repeatedly-observed indicators of character. And, I don't have time for unnecessary online "social"-climbing, people who waste my time, drag me down, or mooch.

- had you at a disadvantage but never exploited it

- someone who helps you move a couch and a desk

- lend a book to and always get it back

- lend a small amount of money to and always get it back

- leave something at their place and they tell you about it

- can count on them for a couch if you get locked-out

The closest of friends:

- you would kill for them and vice-versa

- you trust them implicitly with everything: secrets, material, and family

- you could be mistaken for family and/or your families blend together to where no one can really tell who-is-with-who

This is bluntly simple, but really strikes the right note for me.

Outside of school where friends basically just enjoyed each others company, I would say most friendships now are made in the work related environments so there is often a layer of politics involved that make it difficult for everyone to see who is sincere and who is just networking. Nobody knows how they stand with each other so they are hesitant to develop strong relationships and trust with others.

Traditionally these bonds came about through other things like neighbors, communities and religion, but people are constantly moving for work, and society is more pluralistic (and secular) than ever so most don't begin to lay roots until they have a spouse in these roots aren't being laid, and there hasn't really been anything new that fills that gap outside of where you work.

This.

What Covid showed me was that nearly all of my friends were people I had friendly working relationships with. A ton of my friends were from church where we served in different capacities together and enjoyed working together. And I had a lot of similar relationships at work. But with stay at home covid, I found that I didn't yearn to see these people still. I'm glad when we do stuff together, we enjoy doing so. But I don't miss them. And I found there was a small handful of people that were worth making the effort to actually go on socially distanced walks or whatever to still just hang out.

I am never going back to that super busy over programmed life style where my friends are just the people it's best to get along with friends-like because you're together a lot.

> I probably won't let it destroy the friendships because what is 1.5 years compared to 10+

This sounds like a sunk-cost fallacy to me. You've already pointed out that friendship length isn't correlated with friendship quality.

I had a similar experience to you. I'm trying to be forgiving however, because COVID brought a lot of depression, and people going through depression are inwardly focused and can struggle to maintain relationships. As their friend, I want to be there for them when they're able to focus on us again.

I think we need to have some compassion.

Many people this past year were terrified and traumatized.

And speaking for myself, I got a lot of Zoom/Facetime fatigue and also was dreading having the same conversations over and over again about COVID and lockdown.

I would rather be alone forever than have another zoom call. That’s where I am.

At the start of the pandemic I git in touch with a group of people ("friends") who were living all over Europe and set up a role playing campaign using Discord. I did it for two reasons: I like RPGs, and to provide them with a chance to socialize and get some distraction from Covid, depression etc.

We talk if "normal stuff" (including the Pandemic) for 10-15 minutes top at the start, especially while waiting for everybody to get online, then we play for two hours straight. Voice only, no video. It's a Fantasy campaign so it's pure escapism. It sorta worked so far.

Similar experience. Some friends I haven't heard from because they've been in and out of depression; so that's understandable of course.

Some others would be out gallivanting every day (per their socials) and yet couldn't find a half an hour to hang out. I gave up on those. No loss.

Yeah I had a similar experience and I knew a few people in the same boat, but funnily enough I forged stronger relationships with people that are more genuine, so at the end of the day I feel that I’m better off

This comment is really ambiguous to me. Your friends wouldn't hang out because of the pandemic? If you were criticizing that decision, surely you'd write that more explicitly. But you make it sound like they refuse to spare time, in which case, surely you'd clarify that it was not because of the virus, but then you'd have to explain what you mean by "Covid showed me...".

I’m in your exact same shoes and it hurts so damn bad. I honestly don’t trust the majority of the people I considered friends before the pandemic because of it. It became glaringly obvious what the future was going to be in those relationships. I still don’t know exactly what to do going forward now that there’s a new sense of normalcy in the US

I think you should try not to make it about you.

In 2020, the US was dealing with the stress of a pandemic and also the most anxiety-inducing election season in modern history.

Some people dealt with it by totally shutting down or narrowing their circles. It wasn't personal.

I made a comment about my experience, I don’t think it’s possible to do that without making it about myself. What the op said resonated with me and I just wanted to let them know another man was feeling the same way and hoping that it would make the world a little less lonely. No bad vibes

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