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People Who Don’t Need People
Lockdown has given us loners permission to revel in isolation.
If quarantining and social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic has taught me anything, it’s this: It’s OK if you’re not a people person. For most of my adulthood, I’ve felt guilty for preferring my own company over everyone else’s. But now, I realize a lifetime of lonerism prepared me for life in lockdown.
Although I do miss several things about the way things used to be on the outside — no lines to get into Trader Joe’s, going for runs without a face mask, traveling — being around people is not one of them. My husband feels the same way. When we run out of clever things to say, we fantasize about running away together to a secluded farmhouse in the country where we can live off the land and avoid most human contact except with each other.
We’ve become so fond of wordlessness that we’ve begun to communicate by humming the script.
“Hmmm hmmm hmmm” means “I love you.”
“Hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmm” means “I love you, too.”
And I mean every word I don’t say.
Of course, wordlessness isn’t sustainable, and I can’t hide my bitchy resting face behind a face mask forever. I just completed a work project that required me to do a series of Zoom…
