Missing your friends? How I reconnected with old pals – and even made new ones – in lockdown
It’s easy to let friendships slide when you can’t see each other, but good pals — whether that be best buddies, rekindled relationships or new acquaintances — are vital for our mental health during these tough times
A few years ago, I moved from my home in Dublin across the country to Galway. It’s less than two and half hours on the motorway from city to city, but it felt like I had moved 3,000 miles away because of the tight-knit group of friends that I had left behind me.
WhatsApp and social media were lifesavers for me at the time, offering me ways to stay connected while apart. It was good practice for how we conduct our friendships now.
Over the past year, I’ve watched my friendships separate like sediment in an ant farm, naturally finding their different strata now that the superficial props of cafes and restaurants, pubs and book clubs have been stripped away.
The casual friendships were the first to go, but, surprisingly, some friendships have grown stronger during lockdown, and I’ve even reconnected with old friends, and made a few new ones, too.
While initially we heard about friendships crumbling during the pandemic, I’ve found the opposite has started to happen. After the frenzy of Zoom meetings and quiz nights and long walks subsided in Lockdown One, I got back on social media out of boredom.
Through this, I reconnected with old friends. My phone sent me dire warnings about my screen time usage but I didn’t care. Something beautiful was happening. Friends I had thought lost to me, were back.
I jumped on the DMs, the texts, I said yes to the group chats, responded to every message with a question to keep the conversations going. And with each contact, now almost daily, I felt our friendship return, grow stronger and flourish again.
These were good friends, genuine friends, faithful friends that I had let fall by the wayside, friends I hadn’t texted for months after I had children.
Months became years, and then I became too embarrassed to make contact so the friendships faded. I realise now that I just had to say, “hi, how are you?” because real friendship is always there.
“In terms of mental health, I think friendship is really important,” says GP Dr Harry Barry, author of the books Emotional Healing and Embracing Change.
Dr Harry Barry in his home town Drogheda. Photo: David Conachy
“I have known situations where friends get into dark places and it might be that one phone call to that friend that opens up the possibility of going on. Friends allow us to pick up the phone and say, ‘I’m having one of those days, I can’t cope with the kids at home, or the constant bad news’.
“When we have true friends, we have ‘empathy bonds’ between us, so you mightn’t see a really good friend for a few years and you meet them off the plane and within two minutes the bond is back.
"There’s a trust there, a sense that this person knows what I’m at. It’s almost like the other person knows what you’re thinking.
“The great advantage of that is if we have that friend and we’re getting anxious and stressed, even if we can’t meet them, to be able to go on to WhatsApp and have a good moan is great.
“These things are critical for our mental health because if we don’t have it, these things build up.”
Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen are the creative powerhouses behind the best-selling series of novels, Oh My God What a Complete Aisling and most recently Oh My God What a Complete Diary. As well as colleagues, they also happen to be best friends.
Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen. Photo: Douglas O’Connor
“My ‘God Tier’ of friends includes Emer,” says Sarah. “Because she lives alone, she was able to bubble in with my household. Not only did that allow us to work together easily, we were also able to enjoy a good many Friday nights drinking wine and roaring along to Hamilton. I was also able to call on her for childcare when I needed it.”
“It’s been hugely important to me,” says Emer. “I’m single, so I rely on friends more than a partner or a romantic relationship, and I’ve become a bit closer to some friends. I’ve gotten quite close to a friend who was just a friend-of-a-friend last year, but we’ve become really close because she lives nearby and we’ve been doing our walks together.”
It’s a strange time to make new friends, but I think longing for human connection has made us more open to talking to strangers when we are out on our walks. I have made new connections just walking on the beach, and have joined new WhatsApp groups where I don’t know everyone on the group.
Now I discuss television, politics, books and music of an evening with people I’ve never met, and I’m looking forward to meeting them in real life whenever it is safe to do so.
Maintaining friendships in the meantime can be difficult, but I’m getting creative and doing everything from book clubs and writing groups to learning languages competitively on Duolingo.
Men have an unfair reputation for being bad at maintaining friendships. Rick O’Shea, a presenter on RTÉ Gold and presenter of The Book Show on RTÉ Radio One, says some of his friendships have become deeper too.
“During that period in between lockdowns, one of my friends and I made a very deliberate effort to meet in the open air. We went and sat in a park and brought two cans of beer each and we sat there till after dark, talking about what was going on. We kept up to date.
“Prior to that, we would have met up in a pub somewhere and done that, but this time there was that weird thing of being in a quiet spot, and there was a lot going on in everyone’s lives so we ended up talking about a lot of things we might not have otherwise.”
He has noticed too that he is getting to know more people in his local area. “You get to know people through this, just in passing, to say, ‘how are you, how’s things for you today?’.”
None of this is a substitute for what we’re missing, of course, but it is buoying while we are all at sea.
Sarah Breen says: “Lockdown has done an excellent job of separating the wheat from the chaff. My closest friendships have absolutely grown. My friends are everything to me.
“We all know how exhausting, stressful and frustrating the last 11 months have been, especially with women bearing the brunt of the childcare and schooling on top of our usual responsibilities.
"I don’t have any sisters (neither does Emer), so when I need to vent or moan I go straight to them.
"Likewise, I’m always at the other end of the phone when they need me. They have absolutely kept me sane.”
For those wanting to reconnect with old friends, Dr Harry Barry says just go for it.
“Get stuck in. Send a text. Say sorry you haven’t been in contact. We have to work harder on those important friendships. Forget the minor ones, and focus on the ones that are important to you.
“This horrible period has had the positive effect of making us appreciate how critical friendships are, how not to take them for granted.”
So send that text, write that note, like someone’s tweet… you’ve nothing to lose but friendship.
3 ways to reconnect
⬤ Start a Zoom book club or movie club. Since Covid, small talk has become almost impossible, so having a book or film to discuss will help you get the ball rolling. ⬤ Say yes to joining in. If someone invites you into a group chat or online meet-up, join it. You’ll be surprised how easily you can make new connections online. ⬤ Be brave and take the first step: if there’s someone you’ve been meaning to text or write to for ages, now is the perfect time. Other people are feeling just as disconnected as you are and will be delighted to hear from you.
