Said a man ("William") who got Covid — nearly symptomless Covid — and loved the solitude and inactivity it imposed on him.
Quoted in "A Great Excuse to Do Nothing’: The People Who Don’t Want to Return to Normalcy" (Intelligencer).
More from William: "I’ve had explicit permission to just stay home and I have got my own self-sustaining ecosystem here … work, food, exercise, recreation. I just feel so much more control of my experiences. I’m just dreading traffic, ‘meet me at the coffee shop at three,’ ‘I’m ten minutes late,’ baby showers, [gender] reveals. Like, I don’t want to do any of that fucking shit."
Do you think they just made up that quote or are men these days actually beset by baby showers and — why are these things not yet politically incorrect? — "gender reveals"? But it's sad if people have so lost the capacity to protect themselves from the hurly-burly of the shallowest manifestations of social life that they find relief in catching Covid.
More stories at the link about individuals who didn't understand how much they wanted to be left alone and couldn't figure out how to get what they needed... until Covid.
Is it really solitude that they want, or is it a more satisfying social life? It seems to me that William had a lot of frivolous, annoying, time-consuming interactions with people. The real lesson to be learned might be that you shouldn't do things with other people merely to have something that can be called a social life, but that you should reserve your social self for genuinely worthy occasions. And don't throw occasions that are not worthwhile for your targeted attendees. You don't certainly don't need a "gender reveal." And reconsider your showers — the party kind of showers — and even — it's hard, but let go! — your weddings.
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