Have your COVID relationships survived, five years out?
Recently, my COVID-era friend circle has drifted apart. It was a lot of little things that changed our priorities. We had / lost partners, went sober, got in-person jobs, got stressful jobs, made more / less money, etc. It was also the continual theme of realizing that after 3+ years, we hadn't necessarily broken the surface on our friendships with everyone in the groups.
I tend to feel relationships are generally a little ephemeral, especially in our age group (late 20s / 30s -- which is to say, anything can happen). You drift apart, and sometimes back again, and sometimes apart again, and it's just life. I feel pretty okay about it, although it's a bit sad. Given that we're at the five year mark, I thought it might be an interesting prompt.
I got pretty lucky in this regard. I reconnected with old friends from years past, met my current girlfriend through Zoom-based trivia nights, and formed a tabletop gaming group that (now) meets once a month in person. Things ebb and flow with various work schedules and family commitments, of course, but I'm actually more socially connected now than I was, say, five years ago just before the pandemic.
Mind you, I'm in my early 50's now, late 40's at the start of covid. It's a very different time than when you're in your twenties and thirties. A lot less drama across the board, for which I am exceedingly thankful!
I joined a ttrpg campaign with some people I sort of knew, we had maybe two months of in-person sessions before lockdown threw the game online. Been playing weekly with them very consistently every since.
And an old buddy of mine just married the person they had started seeing right before and decided to "lockdown together" so that's clearly worked out well.
I had a friend group I was doing something with multiple times per week at our peak. A lot of going out and going to concerts etc. During the pandemic we all did this local hike every week, started off as just me and another guy and eventually we had the whole group. For well over a year we didn't miss any weeks even in the winter when it was dark and freezing.
Pretty similar story, a bunch of them moved away in the past 2 years, two of them that remained spent most of last year hiking the PCT so I didn't see them. Now they're back and looking for jobs and the remaining two that have been here the whole time I was never the closest to. We all had a mini reunion where we all took a trip to Miami in Feb but I haven't really seen them since. I imagine I will a couple times in the coming months with the nice weather, and we will still probably do our fantasy football league but we're a far cry from our heyday lol. I don't mind too much as my priorities have kinda changed and I no longer really have the desire to go out regularly and I'm much more of a homebody.
Also had a few instances over the years of guys breaking up with their girlfriend and then a whole group of people we hung out with regularly (the girlfriend's friends) -- some of them pretty good friends -- gone just like that.
Overall I agree it's a little sad. I do look back and wonder how I had the energy to do so much stuff. Nowadays I regularly do discord calls with old highschool friends, keep in touch with college friends, and regularly game with my brother and cousins. And hang out with some coworkers I'm friends with. It's not too bad
Are new friend groups started during COVID a common thing? Or is this just generally about the people we were friends with at that time, regardless of when the friendships started?
I thought they were! But maybe it's because I live in a city. People moved out enmasse, people eventually moved in enmasse. Every time things opened up for us to do, it was a new milestone / opportunity.
I also had old friends reach out during that time, because we were all indoors for the first chunk of it so it was easy to just send an email. I would say those also count as COVID relationships in a way, as they were triggered from the cluster of circumstances that arose from COVID.
Definitely agree that the circumstances of COVID changed or even strengthened some friendships. We were all acutely attuned to how we could socialize safely, and had to be very intentional about it. And then once the restrictions lifted, it breathed new life into what we could do and felt amazing to get back to normalcy
I actually feel like mine are stronger than ever. I got really involved in a discord server and ended up becoming its owner, my ttrpg group is going strong, and my family is intact and thriving.
I feel very fortunate.
I didn't make any new friends through covid as such, I did meet my partner after it but I don't think that really counts for the discussion.
For my friends group though it's certainly been tough, a lot has changed. Some people became a lot more socially isolated and difficult to actually meet (and that's still true today) others I think took covid as a sign they needed change in their lives. There was a lot of moving, marriages, kids and such in my group, which I mean sure is pat and parcel for people in their late 20s early 30s but it felt like there was a bit of added pressure there for people to something with their lives after covid.
For better or worse it put strains on relationships and there's people I definitely don't speak to as much, which is obviously always a shame. But I guess that's life!
I should maybe caveat this whole post with I was one of the people who moved away (to another country!) , so it's definitely harder for me to keep in touch with others.
I also didnt form new in person friendships during COVID. In general I have socialization issues so if I had I'm not sure I'd be able to keep them up. But the biggest reason is that we moved to a small town where everyone already knows everyone, we didn't reach out enough, and I didn't take up the few who did. Life is so much easier for the deeply introverted now, and not actually complaining
Great question!
I have 2 distinct friend groups that formed due to Covid. The first one formed in the first 7 months of Covid, and boy was the trauma bonding strong. We got a new housemate and his new girlfriend moved in with us when lockdown happened and that was our pod. Our landlord ended up freaking out with Covid and the fires selling the house in September 2020 so we had to find new place to live. Those 2 went from being absolute strangers to really, really good friends. We've stayed in touch and still see them about once every other month even though they live 1.5 hours away. They got married in January this year and are having a baby now!!!
When we got evicted we moved to a small coastal town where we knew one couple, but they were so covid safe we never saw them. But we ended up meeting our neighbors and ended up making this incredibly tight crew of about 12 of us. We lost one couple to divorce (still friends but they both moved), one friend to her moving in with her significant other, and two couples to moving for faculty opportunities. But we also gained another 8ish people. So while the group has morphed, and to some degree we all have closer local friends that reflect our values and interests, we still get together to celebrate every holiday. We host octoberfest and thanksgiving at our house. Another couple does Halloween. Another does Christmas. And so on. It feels like having a family here because although our only real through thread is that we weathered covid together we're all still really tight, still help out when people buy furniture or need a hole dug, and can't imagine living here without them!
My pre-covid friendships survived and continue to do well (amidst the demands of having our first child last year), but a few acquaintances grew into better friends with the uptick in online games played.
A few pals from my graduate program all realized that we played Age of Empires and went hog wild with it during the pandemic. My brother in-laws also got in on it and we're a proper posse now.
Frankly, it's not healthy how many evenings each week we play and I'm worried that my other hobbies are suffering.
My ex-wife and I started dating in late 2019, but our relationship really deepened when I stayed with her for the first 5 months of lockdown in 2020. Moved in together in 2021, separated this year.
...so guess not, in my case. Other friends I've made locally both before and during Covid have stuck around though. My current roommate (whom I'm close enough to that she's who I went to first about the divorce stuff) is someone I met in 2022.