Has anyone else lost friendships due Coronavirus?

[RebeccaYellan]

I had a really good friend who stopped speaking to me a couple of months ago, she and I had such different views on how to go about life in a pandemic that the friendship just couldn’t stand it.

Perhaps the friendship had just run its course anyway, but it felt pretty harsh feeling ‘dumped’ in a pandemic. It made an already rough year feel just that bit worse. Has anybody else had the same sort of thing happen?

I think that friendships often don't survive major life changing events. Eg lots of people's friendships change/end when children come along and they discover they have very different approaches to parenting. we just seem to be having a lot more of these sorts of events recently - Brexit, Covid etc.

DH has a group of friends from school. Over the years, they've changed and moved apart but they've always maintained a basic level of friendship and often the differences in morals/approach to things has been able to be glossed over. They got through Brexit because they were all on the same page. They don't see each other enough for the parenting differences to cause a real problem. But Covid is proving trickier and I think there are some real friendship coffins being built virtually.

A freind of mine was strident in her view that Covid is a hoax and it is all a conspiracy for the government to declare marshall law and desolve parliament. In the end I had enough of it and told her to f*ck oof. I work for the NHS in critical Care.

I also lost a friend due to covid..we both have different views about it and we have always listened to one another about other topics.. we agree to disagree and continue.. although covid has changed this.. she doesn't agree with anything and think it's all an hoax.. whereas I believe the government and don't think they have an agenda other than to protect us.. she called me a Sheep for wearing a mask which I told her I'm my own person and I choose to wear one.. she literally turned on me and chose to fall out even though we have disagreed in the past with opinions but never fell out.. in some ways it's best we don't talk.. I do not miss her as she was a complete different person over this covid situation and only her opinion mattered..I rather not be friends with a nasty person .. we was good friends for 8 years in total but obviously meant nothing to her..

There's someone I used to see quite regularly and now I've only seen her once in the pandemic ... and it's made me realise I'm not really fussed about her. I'm not sure I even like her really! I won't be at all bothered if we stop going out and about like we used to.

I also think there's this weird idea these days that you're either with someone or against them. I have a friend who is being far more paranoid about Covid than I am. But that's okay. I respect her decision and she respects mine. So we talk on the phone and have been for a walk or two together, but she doesn't want to do anymore than that and hasn't been in a shop in months. But so what? Her much more nervous approach doesn't affect me so why should it affect our friendship?

But for others, it could lead to name calling for or by one or the other of us.

I've muted quite a few people on SM.
Almost no one IRL knows my gut feelings about the whole situation. I'm not going to have pointless arguments.

Wait until your whole family catches it, no one wants you know you

I've had a couple of pretty terse exchanges with people over it and have chosen to just gloss over it rather than continue the disagreement. The hypocrisy from some people i know has been mind bending but blimey, if you dare challenge them, there'd be one almighty row!!

I haven't lost friends but pre pandemic I used to hang out with friends once a week doing fun stuff. Since the end of lockdown we've only met up twice. It really hit me over the weekend how much I have missed them. Phone calls are not enough.

Yes.

One was a friend who works for the NHS, who would not stop with the 'We're all going to die' stuff back in March when no-one knew how bad it would be and we were all bloody scared. We had a difference of opinion on this - I said it was unfair to scare people when they were already scared, she seemed to think she was helping people by preparing for the worst or scaring people into compliance. That friendship bit the dust; I noticed a short while after that she'd unfriended me on FB. I was a bit hurt but it was more of a friendly acquaintance so I shrugged it off.

I also had some friends I saw every week and I thought they were really close friends. Since the restrictions lifted I've hardly seen them - they go to the pub every week knowing full well that I can't go (I can't risk having to isolate for various reasons) but they aren't interested in seeing me in other settings. I've suggested sitting in the garden or elsewhere outside - essentially places where I can see them but maintain a distance which you can't do when pubs make you sit close together at tables - but they don't seem to be interested. Now I don't fit in I'm not worth the bother, apparently. Added to which, when I DID I seemed to get told off a lot for Covid-related things - not that I was doing anything wrong but there seemed to be a lot of finger-wagging all the same.

That I can't shrug off. It started at the end of the summer and I'm absolutely gutted about it. I dread the day of the week when we used to go to the pub because I know they're there, not giving a toss that I'm not. It's easy to say "Just stuff them, they weren't proper friends" but I thought I'd met a few people who were very similar to me - which doesn't happen all that often - and now they've gone.

A friend who said she was depressed and wanted to be 'gentle with herself', so even though she knew I was massively isolated over lockdown she stopped messaging. I never leaned on her, we only ever messaged 2-3 times a week. 6 months later she seems to like this new normal of messaging every couple of months. Find it really hard to forgive, I think the friendship is over.

Fortunately not, though there are several who I have not met or seen at all. A long-term friend moved away but visits at least monthly for work, and has not been doing so since February.

Interesting to see I’m not alone.

I took the view pretty early on that everyone would have their own view and level of risk. I didn’t criticise or comment what my friend chose to do or not do.

The comment about friendships often not surviving life changing events is helpful. I’ve accepted that in the past, those life changing events have been rather individual so I suppose I just accepted that friendships gradually petered out. The pandemic is happening to us all, so I think I hadn’t seen it as a life changing event as such...and I’ve been trying to desperately minimise its life changing effects and failing massively in some areas of course.

I hope you and your family are recovering well MissSmiley I should imagine that does make it very difficult. We’ve had a couple of people in our street who were ill with it and people were really kind, sometimes strangers are kinder than friends and relatives.

I've gone the opposite. I have rekindled one good, but only met up once or twice a year friendship, to a now weekly walk relationship. We drive separately, park and walk for 90 mins. I have also got friendly with the mother of my dds best friend. We meet up for a walk and we chat together and kids arse about behind us. I didn't really have time to nurture friendships outside work colleagues as life is busy so I am really enjoying this contact as I have been wfh that last 8 months and haven't seen family or work colleagues over this period.

Meh, sort of. Some of my friends won't abide by the restrictions at all and think I am an absolute killjoy for doing so, a bunch of them got really narky with me a couple of weeks ago for not going to one of their houses for birthday drinks. But I just can't. I can't do it, I work in a MH hospital, there is no furlough or wfh for me and our patients don't have any choice whether to be there or not, I cannot, even if I didn't care about anything else, take risks that then place them at risk.

I've lost a couple of fb friends who I am not bothered about & had some quite heated discussions about it all but that was at the beginning when the level of fear was much higher.. I'm not a denier but I am a questioner! I am saddened that I have been called a conspiracy theorist & a tin foil hatter because I've looked further than MSM.. I have never insulted or judged anyone for believing everything they see on the news but hate the current division in society. I have not nor I will never apologise for my views we are all entitled to an opinion.

In my small circle of very close friends there are 2 who go on protests, never wear masks, don't care about covid. It's good to argue with them as they bring me out of my box. BUT... we all agree that our friendship is more than 1 issue. So we agree to disagree and have heated arguments :) Living 1700 km from them actually makes this easier as their decisions have no consequences on me/family.

I haven't had any big failings out but I do have people I thought were close friends that have kind of fizzled out while we can't do things together, if we can't do our regular gym class and coffee, for example, they haven't bothered keeping in touch.

There are also people who I suspect are avoiding me because they think I will judge their actions during the pandemic.

DH had had a serious health crisis, we thought we'd lose him and some of the people I thought were good friends have hardly been in contact. Other "aquaintances" have been brilliant though.

Umm, if you decide your friendship is over because your depressed friend hasn’t kept in regular contact even though they’ve explained why, you really deserved to lose them as a friend.

@ContraIndicated

Umm, if you decide your friendship is over because your depressed friend hasn’t kept in regular contact even though they’ve explained why, you really deserved to lose them as a friend.

I suffer severe depression, which she knows. I would never abandon a good friend who outright told me they were suffering from isolation and depression, which I was. She has been back on her feet a few months now and still doesn't check in on me, so yes, I think that friendship is over when I am the only one doing the contacting.

Unmarkedbythat I think you are doing the right thing and I'm sure many appreciate how you are thinking of those in your care. I'm disappointed with my neighbour who works at the local hospital hosting many visitors.

I think covid has put strain on friendships. I hardly see my best friend like i used too. Partly, because our dd’s have had to isolate since the schools went back. Life does just get in the way sometimes

I've had some "exchanges"...

I'm a self employed single parent and she's a keyworker. We just kept our distance and stopped venting at each other as we were on completely differences pages with completely different priorities and just ended up arguing. I did think the friendship was over but it's a very old friendship and that became more important as it got a bit less raw.

Currently still angry with a friend breaking restrictions repeatedly whilst a family member is ill with C19 though. Trying to keep my mouth shut and let her love her life as she sees fit.

Everyone's stressed as well, so little things become big arguments.