Shared and Opposing Views: How COVID Changed The Landscape of Friendships in an Era When We Needed Them Most

Connection.   Whether through activities like sports, building cars, or sharing time with friends and family, humans value it. In mid-March 2020, everything changed—total shutdown.  

The moment was so extraordinary that McDaniel College's Division III men’s lacrosse team—which on March 14th played in the last college or pro sporting event of the spring 2020 season, a game the players dubbed the Corona Bowl—was featured on ESPN.

Via ESPN/SportsCenter

 It was an unexpected spotlight for then-freshman Vincent Lennon and his McDaniel teammates.

 And then—nothing.

Sports, both professional and college, were canceled. March Madness, one of the most exciting times of the year in sports: shut down. Large gatherings: shut down. School for many: moved online.

Lennon's friendships during his first year at McDaniel were put on pause. He could no longer see his friends in person for the rest of the school year. He could not play the sport he loved.

Like many others in his age demographic, Lennon had to figure out how to move his life online, from friendship to school. Whether friendships were in danger was pretty much up to luck.

Some people got lucky and remained close to their friends from before the pandemic through the end of social distancing to this day. Others were not as lucky and lost friends almost immediately after the pandemic shut the world down.

McDaniel College sent its students home for spring break in 2020, but students did not return until the following academic year. Online classes started immediately, but there was a rushed shift to online platforms with which many were unfamiliar. Professors worked around the clock to ensure students were successful in this uncertain time.

In Fall 2020, students returned to school, but with many precautions in place. Lennon described the 2020-2021 school year at McDaniel as a ‘prison,’ as students could not see each other, communal spaces were closed, and students could not attend McDaniel sports games, which only happened in the spring season.

Taking it Slow

A priority for Lennon was keeping in contact with his friends.

“I actually thought in a way we were all inclusive together,” said Lennon. “Every day, we did the same thing because we didn't have school for a little while.”

“All we would do is sit down and play Xbox, and we'd have like 18 Guys, whether they're from here, McDaniel, or my friends from home,” Lennon continued. “We were just talking as a big group.”

Most of his McDaniel friends who gamed with him during the time came from his lacrosse team. Gaming was used to build bonds with his teammates when they couldn’t practice.

He would indulge in Domino’s Pizza; it had to be the thin-crust pizza. He would sometimes work as a DoorDash driver. 

In the Fall of 2019, he tore his ACL, and when he was getting ready to come back for lacrosse, he could not do physical therapy for about half a year. Lennon’s injury upset him about losing access to playing time during his first season. He did not exercise or eat well because he knew soon enough that he would work out and practice when Fall 2020 came.

Friendship Loss

Some could not see people outside their households. That was the case for Madge Myers. Myers, now a junior at McDaniel College and a member of the college’s field hockey team, had to follow strict family rules due to COVID.

Myers’s hometown of York, Pennsylvania—a deep red area where many people did not realize the danger of COVID or outright resisted CDC-recommended precautions—saw many of her friends disregard the recommended precautions.

But her family followed them closely.

Friends would ask Myers if she wanted to hang out at the beginning stages of the pandemic. She had to regretfully decline because of the regulations her mother set in place.

“They were all hanging out without me because their parents did not really care about the regulations. And my mom didn't let me out of the house for like two and a half months. And by that point, it was like they had moved on without me,” Myers said.

“It definitely felt very lonely considering with social media,” Myers said. “I could see all my friends hanging out, but I knew that I wasn't there.”

Myers is not alone in feeling the loss of friendships due to COVID.

The Guardian’s Sophie Black reported that friendship loss was typical during the pandemic. “Confined to our homes, or separated by borders, with too much time gifted to us in isolation” and, “Some say the silver lining is that we’ve been cured of Fomo [sic.] others say it heralds a widening of the already growing loneliness gap.”

Black described the instant friendship loss as ‘pruning,’ which usually refers to cutting off parts of dead or overgrown tree branches, helping the fruits grow healthier. However, Brown uses this as a metaphor. Brown’s ‘pruning’ metaphor shows that cutting off friendships, especially during COVID, is extreme, especially when many people need their friends most.

Black’s article also mentions a study saying, “Social networks have become more insular and bonding-oriented.”

Social media makes us miss our friends more, whether just a photo of a friend by themselves or friends together. However, during COVID, especially when people were breaking the guidelines of social distancing and posting pictures, Myers saw these types of photos, and her seemingly lonesome COVID experience became increasingly more difficult.

Loose Ties

For McDaniel College Junior Sadie Bowman, a high-school senior when COVID cut her senior year Lacrosse season short when her team was on a hot streak.

Before COVID, Bowman’s approach to friendships during high school was unique.

“I was kind of a floater,” Bowman said. “I talked to multiple different friend groups. I didn't really have like one set group of friends.”

Bowman’s primary friend group came from her travel lacrosse team, who lived all over the state. With social distancing rules and her teammates living all over the state, it was difficult for Bowman to see that group of friends. Bowman did not have a particular group of friends at that time, which was hard, she mentioned.

“I was very much a homebody,” Bowman said. So she was very comfortable with being at home.

Family Ties During COVID 

Myers’ mom is a college professor who teaches education—and a germaphobe. She “would not let us leave the house at all,” Myers said. “So, there was nothing really to do except hang out with my family.”

Her mom held the knowledge and common sense to keep her family safe when Myers’ friends had families that did not necessarily care about who their kids saw. Myers’ family followed a more liberal approach to COVID—seeing nobody.

“I had some frustrations with her,” Myers said. “But by the end of the quarantine period, I was closer with my family because of it. And I knew that she was only doing what she thought was best for us.”

Myers has always had a close relationship with her family and got extremely close with her younger sister, Amelia, during COVID.

While Myers didn’t have friends to hang out with, she relied heavily on Amelia for mental support and someone to hang out with.

“I would say it was pretty emotional. Like, I would come to her [Amelia] with a lot of my feelings, and we would kind of share in those feelings because she was going through a similar thing,” Myers mentioned.

But the idea of valuing family wasn’t just the case for Myers. It was for many others as well.

McDaniel College senior Collin Baechli was a senior in high school when the lockdown started. During lockdown, he put a strong emphasis on family bonds.

“Family is like everything to me,” Baechli said. “So even before COVID I've had a strong relationship with my family. And COVID, I mean, brought us together.”

Like Baechli and Myers, Bowman also focused on spending time with family. COVID made a compelling case for valuing family time together when otherwise, that wasn’t always possible.

“Yeah, my family and I are very close,” Bowman said. “I think we got even closer with COVID because we would take the dog on walks together.”

Bowman enjoyed hanging out with her parents and her brother Cooper during COVID.

COVID was hard on many people. People became forced to transition from working at home to going to school from home. People were forced out of friendships or not being able to see friends. COVID changed much of our lives but also helped teach us lessons.

For those above 18 years old, when Covid hit, like Lennon, he made his own choices.

“My family relationship was good during COVID,” Lennon said. “I didn't get to see my family too much because I was staying with my girlfriend at the time. And they [his family] really didn't want to get sick or anything.”

Lennon’s family was unhappy with his decision to live with his girlfriend.

Red Areas vs Blue Areas

The nation’s capital is a deep blue area, and has voted for the Democratic candidate in the 15 presidential elections they participated in. In the past two presidential elections, 2016 and 2020, the Democrat won the district with at least 90% of the vote.

York, Pennsylvania, where Myers lives, is much more of a purple area but necessarily a swing county. In both the 2016 and 2020 general elections, York County voted for Donald Trump with around 60% of the vote each time, showing strong support for conservatism in the county.

Electoral map with Washington, D.C. and York, Pennsylvania circled, showing the difference in political ideologies. (Via USA Today)

That is because many people in the area are college-educated in the region and realize how vital it is to take COVID seriously.

McDaniel College sophomore Landen Oba lives in Washington, D.C. Oba’s parents are older and did not let him see his friends during COVID. However, that was the case for many people in the Washington metropolitan area. Nobody wanted to get sick. Most believed COVID was a threat, and families stayed in their bubbles.

Oba leans pretty far left and describes himself as a socialist Bernie Sanders supporter—the polar opposite of a supporter of former President Trump.

The difference in approaches to COVID has to do with regional beliefs.

Myers, who is somewhat moderate, but her beliefs are left-leaning, told me that her friends at the time were not all politically conservative. About half of her friends came from conservative families, and the other half’s families did not care. In D.C., Oba and his friends had the same views on social distancing. The area is predominantly liberal, and many are stricter on social distancing, as liberals have taken more severe measures to prevent contracting Covid. In contrast, in York, people were more lenient on seeing more people.

Like many other ideals at the time, social distancing was heavily politicized. 2020 was a presidential election year. COVID, Black Lives Matter, social rights, and activism were riding high as politically contentious issues; many turned to activism—working for and towards causes they believed in. 

Oba worked with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that summer. “I was a part of the ACLU Advocacy Institute, which is basically a week-long program in July. Where the American Civil Liberties Union trains you how to be a better advocate,” Oba said. “So, we did phone banking, we wrote letters, etcetera.”

These activities allowed Oba to interact beyond his family and make new friends at a time when many couldn’t see their existing friends.

Politically, Washington is a deep blue area, and people took COVID exceptionally seriously. Nobody saw others that weren’t in their bubble, and the nation’s capital, which is full of people out and about, was dead.

Oba could walk on Pennsylvania Avenue—literally walk on it—in the middle. Oba looked up and down one of the most famous Avenues in the region and saw nobody. Silence. Something highly uncommon to the hustle and bustle culture of D.C.

“During COVID, especially right after it was declared a national emergency, keeping in mind that this is Trump who is in presidency, and I could walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, which is usually an extremely busy street, in the middle of the road because everything was closed off and no one was driving down the road. It was eerily quiet. It felt like a ghost town.” – Landen Oba

The nation’s capital became drenched in silence. Nobody was around. There was just silence. No cars. Just quiet. Nobody was around in a city that usually has people roaming on the streets, walking and driving. Washingtonians took extreme precautions with COVID.

Pennsylvania Avenue looking towards the U.S. Capitol Building during Covid, with nobody on the streets. (via Patrick Pho)

Oba has remained in contact with his friends during COVID until today. He was not allowed to see them at the time, but neither were any of his friends.

“Everybody in my close-knit friend group follows the same rules that my parents did,” Oba said. “You know, double masking, very strict, social distancing. We didn't really get to see each other, and I know that they didn't get to see each other as well.”

Oba got lucky. He is still in contact with his high school friends; they kept in contact throughout the lockdown, and when his private school started in person, it was a choice to go in or stay online. Through these hardships, he and his friends are close to this day.

Like many in the D.C. area, Oba kept his distance from people he loved most. In an NIH study, “Children's perspectives on friendships and socialization during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A qualitative approach,” by Danaë Larivière‐Bastien et al., they write, “Participants talked about their friends and what friendship means to them. The data show that they consider friendship to consist of pleasant moments and shared enjoyment. For almost all participants, a friend is first and foremost a play partner.”

While Oba was a high schooler and did not have play dates with his friends, people lost out on in-person times of hanging out. However, Oba and his friends had the same views as him, so they stayed in contact virtually.

Leaving Me On Read

During high school, this writer was a member of the world’s largest Jewish youth movement, BBYO, where I had friends all around the globe. Most of my friends came from my involvement in BBYO.

Then Covid happened. Shutting down my BBYO experience from an in-person perspective. Every BBYO region and the individual chapters within the regions moved their programs online. The organization designed BBYO on Demand so that its members could meet new friends and stay connected through an online platform. Any BBYO member could run their own program, and anyone could join. The programs conducted through BBYO On Demand are through the Zoom platform. The on-demand platform is still used today despite COVID restrictions being loose.

The most special part of every week for me happened on BBYO on Demand, during the Havdalah service, the ceremony of ending the Jewish Sabbath, and beginning the new week on Saturday nights.

I could not hug the friends I missed so much—that was hard for me. It was painful, but seeing my friends on the Havdalah service eased my pain just the right amount.

As an only child of divorced parents, going through Covid was especially hard. While most of my friends either had siblings or parents who were together, if not both. I did not. I reached out to friends often, which was a bit too much for them. My friends were focusing on the rare occasion that presented itself when COVID shut the world down family time. I was an only child and felt extremely lonely, and with my constant reaching out, my friends often left me on ‘read.’

Looking back at those times, the theme of ‘pruning’ friendships became apparent.

Luckily, I was just about to head off to college a few months after the Covid lockdown, and had brand new opportunities to make friends, which such friendships would be made that Spring semester.

Bowman and Myers had to wait a whole school year to make strong friendships when Bowman was a “floater” between friend groups, and Myers had to find temporary friends with her boyfriend’s friend group at the time.

For Lennon, Bowman, and Myers, being athletes is a huge component of having an almost guaranteed wider friendship circle. I am not an athlete, and I have to find new and other ways to make friends.

In an NIH study by Håvard Bergesen Dalen et al. states, “Sports have the potential to transcend ordinary everyday interactions and unite people in social experiences favorable to social relations. Accounts of such experiences have been conceptualized as flow, aesthetics, or religious experiences. Hence, a basic assumption for our study is that sports provide fertile ground for social relations.”

Into Action

Those not wanting to rejoin sports teams often had to find creative ways to spend their time and to make new friends.

Oba is an avid breeder of canaries, a treasured family tradition.

It is a tradition “that dates back to the great depression,” Oba said. “Because my great grandmother would breed them and sell the Canaries to the coal mine, hence the saying ‘canary in a coal mine.’ And my mother bred them for a little while when she was single in New York.”

Now a college sophomore, Oba still holds this family tradition near his heart. Also, during COVID, Oba built model planes as a hobby.

Others, such as Baechli, had passion projects during COVID. For him, it was building cars from scratch.

Myers emphasized a cliché but true lesson that she had to learn: “Everything happens for a reason, which is a horrible phrase, and I hate it,” She said. “But also, it did happen for a reason; it sucked. And sometimes it feels like sucky things shouldn't be happening to you. But if you just trust that it will work out in the end, and you kind of hold on to that piece of hope that once you get through this place of darkness, it'll be okay. It's a lot easier to do.”