Lonely

(def: sad because one has no friends or company)

A NEW threat. We may not – most of us – be lonely yet, but it feels pressingly close. Because of the coronavirus one way in which we can connect, the mass gathering, has been struck off for now. There is that creeping awareness, too, that some around us are already self-isolating, shutting themselves off, even as some others are, in fact, extremely ill, perhaps dying. Things have also started to be cancelled.

For me, the first coronavirus-related cancellation came as a bit of a relief. When I heard the event was off there was that small lift I often get when something disappears from an overcrowded diary. But then other events start to disappear, other cancellations. Everything we thought definite, possibly off the cards. Nothing is in permanent ink any more, everything in pencil. And much of that is being rubbed out.

I imagine there are many people out there who feel none of that relief – those who see only the threat of lost income, lost connections, lost visits. Old people, those with disabilities, the immunosuppressed, carers who can’t meet friends now because they may carry the virus to those they look after.

Loneliness isn’t new to us in the UK. The likes of Jo Cox’s Loneliness Commission and The Campaign To End Loneliness have already done a great deal to make us aware of its presence. We also know now that lonely people are more unhealthy and tend to die younger.

There are many types of loneliness already endemic in our society. It can be there in the isolated elderly. There in the single parent on benefits, stuck in with young kids, going stir crazy. It can be there in the millennial or gen Z-er. Of our young people, 30% say they are lonely. All of these will no doubt be exacerbated by social distancing. Those younger generations may be less likely to die of the disease, but they still may be asked to stay home alone.

Coronavirus is chipping away at interconnections that are already fragile – and that’s even without us having a full lockdown. An article in Vox predicts that as well as an economic recession, the United States could be heading towards a “social recession” – “a collapse in social contact that is particularly hard on the population’s most vulnerable to isolation and loneliness – older adults and people with disabilities or pre-existing health conditions”.

I think of this when a friend tells me that when she arrived at her mother’s care home she found they had just started a ban on visitors. Luckily, they still let her in, but the cut-off in visiting rights was so sudden that there will be others who didn’t get this last visit before the lockdown. There will be old people who will be pained and possibly terrified by their sudden isolation.

Then there are my parents, who call to tell me that they think we shouldn’t meet at Easter since they are in an at-risk group. I feel a pang of fear that I’m not going to see them now for many months. What if they catch it? What if they catch it and die and it’s not me that’s given them it and I haven’t seen them?

Then I consider a worse alternative – that they do catch it and it’s me, visiting at Easter, that gives it to them.

So I relate to the advice from Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, earlier this week that this needs to be done at the right moment. We are social animals. The things we may be asked to do – particularly those around not seeing loved ones – will be hard. Go too early, and our loneliness may make us want to bounce back into connection precisely when we need most to stay home.

Meanwhile, this pandemic is a reminder that loneliness is already here, an epidemic of sadness and alienation. And this is one reminder of it.

Plook love

(def: affection for something most people find ugly)

Whenever some brutalist building like the megastructure in Cumbernauld gets slated for demolition there are always some who step forward to profess their love. Almost the more ugly it is, the more love it gets.

The former winner of the “plook on a plinth” at the Carbuncle awards is getting that warmth now. Why? Because the plooks stand out, they’re distinctive, and we feel too often they are replaced only with a dull uniformity.

It’s like finding people with wonky teeth attractive in this world in which they are increasingly straight.