It is the best of times. It is the weirdest of times. Depending.
Which social skills have you forgotten? I, for one, have usually eaten standing at the kitchen counter, for the last year and a half. So when I was recently taken to a restaurant (what’s that?), I found myself staring in wonder and bemusement at – a fork.
Others have relearned how to use spoons, ride ponies, dissect watermelons. We’ve stopped tugging neurotically at our faces to check on our masks. Oh, we really should shower more than once a week, some of us remember. Our public expects it.
Yet the newly emerged are not contented. “I still can’t find atheist chicks to date,” one Facebooker posted. Others assured him his princess would come – though theirs hadn’t, they admitted. Still no dates.
But what is a date, anyhow? It’s supposed to be a preplanned social engagement. In that case, my plumber neighbor’s 9 a.m. appointment to fix my water heater was – a date. Then he went home to his wife.
My life may sound more exciting than it is.
I was in a restaurant yesterday and felt so weird seeing unmasked people–lots of tats and beards and tight clothing–and was glad to get back to my cave where people are more like abstractions.
I think I’ve lost my filter during the pandemic, because I’ve been reminded during the last few weeks that I can’t just let my dark humour loose in just any company.
So true. Me too.
As the author of the original piece, I’m particularly pleased to hear from readers who share my own feelings of weirdness and strangeness. Unmasked people do strike me as kinda scary, and part of me wants to retreat to my seclusion. I don’t wanna have to dress up like a grownup.