When it’s always on the terms of the more germ conscious / paranoid / worried friend..

[Abelard40]

... ok so not phrasing that well but getting a bit tired of being fine when friend cancels / expresses caution over latest data / some friend of a friend was near someone with COVID even though track n trace haven’t been involved (not always a solid case granted) .. but I am mildly irritated these days by the fact it’s her that dictates the terms of when it is or isn’t safe.. gah... I’m being a bitch right?

I do feel like once the cautious ones eventually get sick of this and decide to come out of their shells, they may find that the friendship groups have moved on without them

Maybe that’s for the best anyway. Not really much of a friend imo if not willing to understand their anxieties or fears or adapt social events ti suit.

As I explained, it's not about not liking people or wanting to punish them. It's just that it's harder to be friends with people who you can never see face to face. Not every event is adaptable. I don't want to do a Zoom playdate with toddlers. Tried that once. The playdate friend is really nice but it was rubbish--me prodding a bored toddler to try and get them to interact with the equally-bored child inside the computer screen, and as adults we don't have much to talk about any more, as explained in previous posts. I have tried but it's not easy!

The problem you have in posting here OP, is that I would say most of MN share the same opinions as your friend.

From those of us who have actually left their homes in the last 12 months and have yet to actually catch a whiff of covid, stop making plans with her.

I would stop making plans with her. I have a similar friend who now never sees any of our friendship group for the same reason. If she was really vulnerable I could maybe understand but would have expected similar behaviour since the vulnerability has been around. People who are vulnerable to Covid can be to other things too so will probably have been cautious about those with stomach bugs, colds etc in the past. Covid isn't going away so what is she going to do hide in her house forever.

No. YANBU. I’m am sick to the back teeth of the bloody terrified running things and dictating rules.

I agree. It’s up to her but I feel that some people will be surprised when their relationship with their friends isn’t quite the same after over a year of refusing to see them and constant cancelling - even when they aren’t vulnerable and the data doesn’t support it.

I do feel like once the cautious ones eventually get sick of this and decide to come out of their shells, they may find that the friendship groups have moved on without them

Absolutely, that’s the natural way of things after all.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

I do feel like once the cautious ones eventually get sick of this and decide to come out of their shells, they may find that the friendship groups have moved on without them

Maybe that’s for the best anyway. Not really much of a friend imo if not willing to understand their anxieties or fears or adapt social events ti suit.

Speaking as someone who is medicated for anxiety, it’s totally unreasonable to expect every single social event to be adapted to suit your anxiety.

I agree with everything @Kokeshi123 has said and I've found this to be true, even in the UK. Unfortunately over the last 15 months, friendship dynamics have changed so that people end up closer to friends who are like-minded on this.

I think you obviously can't force your friend to meet against her will, but she also needs to understand how much this is inconveniencing you, and not expect you to be available for her.

I also think it's important to distinguish people who have genuine anxiety from people who are unable to make accurate risk assessments. I have suffered from anxiety in my life, so I get it, and I have sometimes been anxious about things where the data did not support my anxiety. That's fine - anxiety is a condition that needs to be treated like any other condition. In my view, if a young, healthy person with no vulnerabilities/vulnerable people in their household living in an area which has, say 20 covid cases per 100,000 is currently anxious about meeting up - that is anxiety, and she should state it as so. It is not a rational assessment of the situation. She should say 'I can't meet you because of my anxiety'. That is the real reason.

@Thisisus909

I am increasingly sounding out friends and spending more time with those who are more relaxed. I’ve been double vaccinated and had COVID so don’t feel too vulnerable. I’m not licking the tables but I enjoy meeting a friend for a coffee and not having to sit outside even if it’s raining. Anxious friends I still love and support by text or calls but it’s really much better for them and me if we don’t try and see each other when they feel very stressed by it and I feel frustrated.

Are all the people you're labelling as anxious also people who are double vaccinated and have had covid?

I also think it's important to distinguish people who have genuine anxiety from people who are unable to make accurate risk assessments.

What about people who can make accurate risk assessments and just disagree? I'm thinking indoor vs outdoor all the way through the pandemic - some people just haven't understood about ventilation and still don't. There's an assumption on this thread that the least cautious people are always objectively right in their decisions, but threads on MN strongly suggest that there's actually still a lot of misunderstanding of the relative risks of meeting in different ways.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply - some really thoughtful and understanding responses.

@Ostara212 yep, I think agreeing to just not make any arrangements for now would be diplomatic. Or as @Kokeshi123 and others suggest let it fade and see how things have realigned when all this is over - I feel that’s a shame and against my instinct to give up on people but it is probably better for us both. It’s tricky because she lives next door but one to me. Last summer in the first lockdown I had a friend in the garden (when you were allowed) and she saw and got really upset saying that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. I don’t normally bite but I replied and told her maybe it was best if she never left the house again ever. It was catty and mean of me and I felt bad about it - we made it up but I think because so much of our friendship has been over WhatsApp this year it still hangs in the air a bit.

Someone asked if she apologises when she cancels - sort of - it’s in a ‘really sorry we won’t be able to go for that walk now - don’t know if you’ve heard but class 4 bubble has burst’ type of thing (class 4 who non of our children are actually in...)

Anyway - we are not the only ones negotiating these issues when everyone is on on different points of the anxiety / risk assessment / whatever you want to call it scale and that’s been comforting to hear.

@Ifseg3585 Absolutely - I wasn't implying that the most willing to take risks are always accurate in their risk assessments.

But it is unquestionably true that a low-risk individual who is now vaccinated and living in an area where cases are low and the majority of the at-risk are jabbed ... if that person is genuinely scared to meet a friend indoors, I think by any objective assessment is a very very risk averse individual. I would be surprised if you could find any statistician/epidemiologist who would say their risk from covid was higher than that of getting in a car, crossing the road etc.

None of which is to say that person couldn't get covid and have a terrible reaction, of course they could. But the levels of risk don't justify the level of anxiety.

To give an analogy, in my early 20s I had a cancer scare, which thankfully turned out to be fine. In the following year or so, I was convinced that every little thing was cancer, and it was quite frustrating for those close to me who continually had to persuade me that, for example, my mouth ulcer was probably not mouth cancer, my rash was not skin cancer etc. They had an awful lot of sympathy for my anxiety which was clearly affecting my life, but even I during this period acknowledged at every point that while it was statistically possible that my mouth ulcer was cancer, the odds were overwhelmingly low.

This is the current situation in relation to young healthy people paralysed with anxiety about leaving the house. Yes they may get covid and have a terrible response to it, but the overwhelming likelihood is that they will not. And what they are sacrificing in the meantime is happiness, relationships, friendships, time spent with family and so on. You never get the time back.

Would annoy me too, but I think you have to respect the way other people feel and be guided by that.

It's very frustrating but I think you need to let people assess their own risks, still. And if that means not making plans, don't yet.

My friend who has been exactly like this (down to the other class bubbles bursting and still disinfecting all shopping & post, not going anywhere, isolating for 2 weeks before meeting family outdoors, leaping into bushes to avoid people on pavements etc) has just caught coronavirus from her DS, presumably from high school. She's fine. She's sniffled a bit. And now she's not sure where to go with her anxiety really! But me railroading her won't help her.

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A quote from this book here (which is worth reading):
“Loneliness in late adulthood is deadlier than smoking. Indeed, once you’re over 65, you’re better off smoking, drinking, and overeating with your friends than you are sitting at home alone.”

Even in your 30s and 40s, loneliness raises mortality to the extent that it is likely to be many times more deadly than the vanishingly tiny risk of a fully-vaccinated person dying of COVID.

Screentime is not the same, by the way. The research on happiness, health and social contact suggests strongly that people need real face-to-face time with friends, not just interacting through digital means.

Perhaps we need to start worrying about the loneliness pandemic as well.

By the way, has anyone else noted the appearance of unofficial "back office" meetup groups in their local area, town or city?

I've been a member of lots of (mostly parent-oriented) Facebook groups which were originally holding real-life meetings--like, let's call it the "CityName Parents Meetup Group." The groups all stopped face to face meetings in the spring of last year. Nobody quite wants to be the politically incorrect person who challenges this, even though it's now pretty obvious that the risk of meetups that are outdoors and have everyone wearing masks is probably close to zero.

So one by one, people who knew each other through the group started just meeting up privately, then group chats were formed, and then eventually a kind of unofficial version of the original group ("CityName Kids And Families Meeting Group" etc.) is created and everyone is just meeting up through there.

Meanwhile, the poor old admins in charge of the original and official "CityName Parents Meetup Group" are still gamely posting away, putting up Zoom meetings, which a small number of diehard holdouts are still attending... sometimes. Nobody really wants to say anything about the unofficial group in case it causes hurt feelings or makes anyone feel excluded, so I suppose they still don't know about it. This exact process has happened with three groups I am a member of.

So yes. Friendship groups move on.

Your friend is batshit. You have every right to rant IMO.