While the experts are already mapping societal changes that might stick after the pandemic is over (universal basic income, a greater investment in public health), there could be other unexpected societal consequences that occur.
Some people won’t come out of iso
Maybe you’ve got some friends who are a bit on the introverted side, the ones who always cancel plans at the last minute. Nonetheless, you can’t wait to see them after iso.
But almost a year has gone by since the pubs reopened, and you still haven’t seen your quiet friends. Then it dawns on you: some people loved iso so much they’ve decided to stay there.
You’ll dump other friends
One day, let’s say in June 2024, you’ll be at a friend’s house and need to borrow a tool. They’ll take you into the shed. There must be thousands of rolls up there – stacked deep and up to the rafters. Toilet paper.
Then you remember … that desperate week in March 2020 when you went to six different supermarkets to get toilet paper for yourself and your elderly neighbours. Instead you ended up finding a lone box of tissues at the servo. Later you had to divide the squares and give five each to your neighbours. “I’m sorry,” you say, barely able to hold back tears. “There were people fighting in the aisles, ripping apart pallets with their bare hands. I saw one woman pull another woman’s hair, I saw armed guards.”
During the era that was the month of March 2020, there was no toilet paper, because your (now former) friend bought it all and stockpiled it.
In disgust, you walk out to your friend’s garage and on to the street, and you never speak to them again.
You have a Pavlovian response to bin night
There are things you never want to do again: sanitise your hands, queue up outside a supermarket for groceries, wear latex gloves secured at the wrists with rubber bands whenever you leave the house, choose only one person outside your household to exercise with, use disposable coffee cups, watch cooking tutorials on YouTube, cut your own hair, home-school, go to a Zoom trivia night, attend the livestream of a funeral, hear the term “wet market”. But there’s one thing you remember fondly: bin night. It was the one night a week you went out – even if it was only to the end of your driveway.
So great was the anticipation, that even now – years after the pandemic is over – you still feel residual excitement on bin night.
You’ll miss the memes
Before the covi all we had was the Distracted Boyfriend meme. It was OK, kind of versatile. But it took a global pandemic to really ignite meme-making and take it to the next level. Each day as our worlds shrunk, the memes expanded: getting better, funnier and more plentiful. Trapped inside our homes and our increasingly twisted minds, memes tackled everything from day-drinking to home-schooling to quarantine hair to stockpiling toilet paper.
And the true joy of covi? TikTok – the only place on earth where the coronavirus is actually funny.
Commitment-phobes will be suddenly cured
Perhaps you once played the field, reliant on a never-ending roll of new faces on dozens of dating apps. No need to settle down, no need to commit, lots of fish out there and lots of seas – until (EMERGENCY SIREN BLASTS) … IT’S A PANDEMIC AND EVERY BAR IS SHUT AND YOU CAN’T MEET UP WITH OR TOUCH STRANGERS, UNLESS YOU WANT A $1,061 FINE, TO DIE FROM COVI OR HAVE TO PRETEND TO EXERCISE, OR ALL THREE.
The pandemic was like a sudden game of musical chairs and when the iso started, it was like the music stopped. As we prepare for future waves of lock-ins and more pandemics, all the commitment phobes are suddenly keen to move in after a week of dating, adopt a rescue greyhound and spend all their time baking. Anything to avoid being in iso alone!
The rise of iso-nostalgics
Yar, wasn’t it great, they say. We really bonded with our five children, as we home-schooled them while working full-time. The kids were such troupers, even after the bowl haircuts, and even after all their birthdays were cancelled and the only thing they had to play with was an old jigsaw puzzle that had the centre pieces missing. It brought us closer as a family. It was a sacred time. We baked bread, we formed a community choir and sang for our isolated and scared neighbours. We really got healthy too – lots of organic food. Everything made from scratch.
This DID NOT HAPPEN LIKE THIS. You are remembering this all wrong. You were drunk mostly. Your cooking was mostly heating up frozen pizza. Remember, all you did was complain – and beg your parents to come over and babysit for you even if it could have potentially killed them. Because you were going to die anyway if you didn’t get some help.
After the pandemic has passed people will voluntarily socially distance after going too hard
People who have never taken cocaine will do the pile. People who have always been faithful will have an orgy. People who only ever have one drink will drain the bar dry.
When we all crawl out of our iso holes, we are potentially a greater risk to our own and public health than during the pandemic. In short: we will go too hard.
And if we survive, after we have had 24 hours of strenuous partying and touching each other, our bodies and brains – now habituated to isolation – will want to just crawl back inside again and resume social distancing.
• Brigid Delaney is a Guardian Australia columnist
