I perceive contemporary social relationships as afflicted by an invisible epidemic of hypersensitivity and avoidance. As for me, I am a mild-mannered older man who never intends to give offense. Nevertheless, since the pandemic began I have succeeded in offending two longstanding friends to such a degree that they broke off contact with me and refused to respond to my inquiries about what was wrong. The first was an old acquaintance with whom I interacted often during the pandemic. Our interactions included drinks and meeting socially. Since this individual does not drive, I provided him needed transportation on several occasions. After I noticed that he was no longer responding to my emails, I assumed that he was probably busy. When I chanced to meet him in a coffee shop and asked what was going on, he replied that if I didn’t know, there was no point talking about it. It needs to be added that he is not a teenager but, like me, a mature and professionally experienced adult.
The same can be said of a second friend. Until recently, we had been meeting regularly for coffee and conversation. In his case, I know what must have given offense. We had been discussing the war in Ukraine. Though I sympathize with the Ukrainians and regard them as victims of Putin’s aggression, I am suspicious of unconditional partisanship with respect to any war. My opinion that territorial compromise would be preferable to the interminable slaughter and suffering was what no doubt caused him to get up in mid-conversation, deposit his coffee cup, and wordlessly depart. He didn’t respond to an email apology for having evidently offended him. At our next appointed coffee date, he didn’t show up or give notice. I think that this qualifies as ghosting. I have no doubt that in his view, I crossed some red line.
In other cases, I get the sense that those I have been close to in the past have withdrawn from me for no reason. Perhaps they feel that their Facebook postings suffice as sociability. My sense is that the pandemic has inflicted lasting damage on social relationships. Social media created the mechanism for withdrawal. The pandemic accelerated the process. If so, this is one more sign that society is now divided between imputed self-righteousness on the one hand and putative unspeakable transgression on the other. Others do not ghost me but draw back and become unresponsive when certain themes come up in conversation. Add to this the involuntary isolation of quarantine which for older people living alone was already a harsh solitary confinement.
I think of Rilke’s poem “Loneliness” (Einsamkeit) which envisioned a grim ecology of solitude, one that is now coming into crisis mode thanks to the atomizing force of advanced capitalism. Medieval artists knew the fatal projectiles of an Angel of Death. Rilke’s ecology of loneliness is closer to our worldview.
Signed,
Andrew (Weeks)
Einsamkeit
Die Einsamkeit ist wie ein Regen. Sie steigt vom Meer den Abenden entgegen; von Ebenen, die fern sind und entlegen, geht sie zum Himmel, der sie immer hat. Und erst vom Himmel fällt sie auf die Stadt. Regnet hernieder in den Zwitterstunden, wenn sich nach Morgen wenden alle Gassen und wenn die Leiber, welche nichts gefunden, enttäuscht und traurig von einander lassen; und wenn die Menschen, die einander hassen, in einem Bett zusammen schlafen müssen: dann geht die Einsamkeit mit den Flüssen...
Loneliness
Loneliness is like a rain. It ascends from the sea to meet the evenings; from plains that are far and off the way, it goes up to the heavens, which always have it. And only from the heavens does it fall on the city. Rains down in the in-between hours, When every alleyway wends towards dawn and when the lovers who've found nothing, disillusioned and dismayed, turn from each other; and when those who hate each other are forced to sleep together in one bed: then the loneliness flows with the rivers...
Normal Thoughts 