"Honey, I Think We Should See Other People"

It's always strange having a conversation with your boyfriend about needing to see other people. And by "seeing other people", I mean socializing with other people besides each other. I love you, and you love me, and I know you agree with me that we enjoy each other's company and living together and everything, but I also know you agree with me when I say that we need to see other people. Talk to other human beings. We need to socialize with other humans, otherwise we will drive each other absolutely insane. It can turn into a convoluted conversation ending in hurt feelings on both sides, or, like it did with me, it can end with yeah I totally agree. It's nice knowing that your significant other is equally sick of you as you are of him (this is a joke but I feel like putting "lol" in a blog post feels somewhat unprofessional, I don't know).

Almost all of our friends have moved to other states since graduating college, so it's not like we can call one of them up and see if they want to hang out. Seeing these friends, or sometimes even talking to them on the phone, takes some major planning. It's exhausting. Adult friendships are basically just a constant game of phone tag, but for real life. The fifteenth doesn't work for you? Okay that's fine! No I'm booked for the whole month of November, otherwise I would definitely make plans to come see you! Now I know that the saying "if it's important to you, you'll make time" rings true most of the time, but sometimes people are truly just busy. The usual case is that your schedule is so conflicting with a friend's schedule, making it really difficult to spend some quality time together. This pandemic has made these kinds of friendships even harder to maintain. It feels a little unwise to buy a plane ticket to see a friend out in Colorado or drive a few hours up to Minnesota when there's still an infectious virus running amuck through the air.

It's not normal to only interact with one person, all day, every day. We've been talking about getting a cat for a long time now, probably since the third month of dating, but after the conversation we had today, we've started to consider it more seriously.

"Maybe a cat running around the apartment would be a nice happy-medium. We would technically be interacting with another living creature that isn't the other person, while still being conscious of the current situation that's preventing us from seeing other people right now," I suggested. Of course, a cat would not fully replace human contact. But it would be a buffer for sure. A cute, furry buffer who would look adorable sitting in our third-story windows and lounging on the back of our couch.

Back to the friendship and other human contact dilemma. Talking on the phone is an okay substitute, but we all know it's not the same thing as seeing someone in-person. Studies have been done on this (I think, don't quote me on this) and it's been found that contact through FaceTime, Zoom, regular phone calls, texting, any kind of technology really, doesn't give us the same gratification as having in-person contact with someone. Humans are meant to be around other humans, in larger groups, not a group that consists of one other person. It makes sense that those of us "quarantining" with only one person, seeing only that one person 24/7, will start to feel a little stir-crazy and lonely, and find ourselves missing our friends a little extra. No matter how much you love that other person, it's natural to want to see someone else's face for a change, at least for a couple of hours out of the day.

Furthermore, it's perfectly okay, and probably really important to help keep the relationship thriving, to set some boundaries. Maybe have a set time every night where you each go off and do something by yourself for an hour or so. It's important to still have some time to yourself when you're living with another person, and doing this will help soothe that nagging need to interact with others because you'll technically be doing that, just with yourself. Hell, now might be a good time to have an imaginary friend again, why not? Talk to yourself about your day, check in with yourself, that kind of thing. It can be too easy to start to emotionally depend on your partner when you're living together and only see them on a day-to-day basis, so getting some alone time is a good way to keep that from happening. That way, when you do get back from your mini break from being around one another, you might not feel as stir-crazy as before.

Anyway, this is just a long way of letting all of my friends who aren't geographically close to me know that I miss them. It's also a way to tell people that it's okay if you're feeling lonely or weird or stir-crazy right now because being quarantined alone or with just one other person is not healthy for us. We need human interaction, it's what keeps us going for the most part. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going window shopping on my local adoption shelter's website. Stay sane, everyone.