The Pandemic Has Erased Entire Categories of Friendship

“I realized how much I missed all of those people I only sort of know ... the pandemic has evaporated entire categories of friendship, and by doing so, depleted the joys that make up a human life - and buoy human health. But that does present an opportunity. In the coming months, as we begin to add people back into our lives, we’ll now know what it’s like to be without them.”

Could the pandemic actually help us make our extended social circles more powerful, or have we lost casual relationships that will never return? In this insightful article from The Atlantic, writer Amanda Hull explores the idea of friendships at different levels and how each of us might shift the way we navigate these relationships, and how we appreciate them, in the future. It’s an important point and one that I suspect more people will be thinking about in the coming months, and more psychologists will be studying for some time as well.