Friends in a Pandemic

 Making and maintaining friendships during the pandemic is a difficult balancing act. I’m a freshman at LC so I didn’t know anyone here when I first got to campus. Since then I’ve made friends through work and class and through other friends. Now it’s always a balance between covid safety and trying to socialize.


The good thing about being a freshman is that everyone is very eager to make friends. I participated in a virtual New Student Trip. Normally New Student Trips are more exciting,  backpacking trips or social justice work in portland. They are run through College Outdoors, LC’s program that organizes outdoor recreation. This year there was no backpacking, no meeting in person. We essentially just did a lot of ice breakers over zoom. While it was certainly not ideal, the councilors did a very good job, and we all exchanged numbers in the end, so I had people to hang out with as soon as I got to campus.


I often find myself balancing LC restrictions with my own desire to socialize. The basic covid restrictions don’t allow you to go into dorms other than your own, some small socially distance gatherings are allowed. (you can access the full covid guidelines here https://www.lclark.edu/news/covid-19-response/health-and-safety/ ). Keeping track of these rules and trying to follow them to the letter has been confusing and frustrating especially when people around you are operating differently. My personal philosophy is that all of these rules are meant to keep us and the community safe, so I try to do my best to honor that in everything that I do.


One relevant rule that is often complicated and confusing is that we are supposed to limit our social interaction to a “pod” the idea being that this is similar to a family group you’d have at home. The problems this posed seems obvious. I hadn’t gotten to know anyone yet. I couldn’t commit to only hanging out with certain people before I knew any people. The other issue is the unavoidable drama of enforced social groups. Becoming part of a pod is a big commitment to a group of people. My initial pod was a group of people who didn’t have a ton in common so we all ended up making other friends. 


When we first came back to campus from winter break, we were observing “enhanced social distancing” so we really weren’t supposed to see anyone. This was a particularly challenging restriction because we hadn’t seen each other in two months and we were all excited to hang out. 


This weekend I went down to the river with my pod. We had tea and watch the mallards. It was raining but not hard enough that it was uncomfortable or cold. It was however very muddy and we all came home covered in dirt. 


P.S. a weather update. It snowed! Last week for a few hours it piled up a bit. It was above freezing so it was very wet snow and it was gone the next day but people still tried to build snowmen and sled downhills. I even saw someone trying to snowboard.