Reviewing our First Post-Lockdown Social Interaction

Rosie and Miia van Beusekom | She/Her

Like many of you, we’ve been desperate to get out of lockdown. To burst our bubbles and hug our friends. So how was that first post-lockdown social interaction?

Close to eight weeks have gone by in our smallish bubble without event. Doing the kinds of things everyone else is doing—finding new hobbies, falling behind on study, writing for Salient, eating copious amounts of snacks. All of our new-found activities, however, lacked that one vital element: our much-loved friends.

A good Social Interaction™ consists of four main parts: hugs, yarns, time, and (most importantly) friends, and we’re rating each of these out of 5 for our first post-lockdown Social Interaction. For a more well-rounded review, we have included feedback from our friends.

Hugs

Nothing beats breaking down your friends’ door and pulling them into a good hug. While we did wait for the door to be opened for us, a long break between visits meant that we’d all but forgotten how to hug our friends. Unfortunately, we hadn’t taken the time to do a whole lot of squats over the lockdown period, so we weren’t able to lift our pals off their feet and whirl them around the room dramatically like we’d imagined. Alas, we chose being snacked over being jacked. Still, the hugs were an unmatched experience - 4.5/5

“Miia had somewhat forgotten how to hug. This was evident from the get go, but something I will very happily forgive her for.” -  4/5

Yarns

All the best interactions with our friends involve some solid yarns. Having not seen anyone different for almost two months, there’s definitely plenty to talk about, whether it’s building a catio (it's a patio, but for cats), the slow degradation of your sense of humour, the idiot that cut you off on the motorway on the drive over, or getting engaged to your partner of a year you’ve been calling your wife since day 7. We do feel like there was a lot of word-vomiting. This interaction had good quality yarns a-plenty, and you can’t fault a bit of word-vomiting  - 5/5

“These two always turn up with a huge announcement, and this time was no exception. Makes for an interesting conversation, which makes for a very fun time.” - 5/5

Time

Unfortunately, this part really let the whole experience down. A good quality Social Interaction™ requires good quality time, and this one just didn't quite cut the mustard. You can't count a flying stop on the way home as quality time, and it showed. The Social Interaction needs to be planned more than 3 hours in advance, and should absolutely include snacks and/or a meal. Poorly planned, and just was not long enough to really justify a higher rating - 2/5

“Wasn’t long enough. Poor show.” - 1/5

Friends

The quality of the friends makes or breaks the whole experience, and in this instance, the friends were top notch. Absolutely lovely people with incredible and diverse personalities. All have a fantastic sense of humour and know how to talk some top-quality rubbish. What more can we even say? Lovely friends. One of them will be at the bridal party. Honestly, where would we be without them? Couldn't be improved on at all - 6/5

“Love them to bits.” - 10/5

Overall, you couldn't ask for a better first post-lockdown social interaction. The only thing letting the side down was a lack of quality time and some interesting hugging technique, but this was more than compensated for with top quality yarns and friends. Our overall rating - 4.5/5

Friend’s overall rating - 5/5