Virtual contact can’t permanently replace human contact – and sometimes, it can’t even be a stopgap
“Have you thought that your brain might not be cracked up for this?” asked a friend after an attempted conference call.
A small group of us have met every Friday night during lockdown on Zoom, to chat and give each other support while we can’t socialise properly.
But I have been struggling, so much so that a few of these friends have remarked to me afterwards that I do not seem myself. I stare off into the middle distance, fixing my eyes on a corner of the room beyond the laptop screen. I cannot maintain eye contact with anyone and when I try to speak, I fuss and flap like my mum when she is trying to use a new mobile phone: “Can you hear me?” I bellow into the laptop, as they all tell me I don’t need to shout.
The world, I believe, is about to divide into those who are willing and happy to live online and those who refuse to, because they don’t like it or just can’t manage it.
I fall into the latter category. I can neither handle a conference call, technically speaking, nor can I enjoy one. I get no sense of fellowship from speaking to my friends on Zoom.
I click Leave Meeting at the end and feel more lonely than before we started. If you accept that we are spiritual beings then it is not so very hard to see why virtual life is not a substitute for real life, especially for those of us who have always preferred the great outdoors to playing computer games or watching TV.
I called my column in the Spectator magazine Real Life when I started writing it because I felt very strongly that more and more people were retreating online to live less of their lives face to face, outdoors, or in the moment. Shopping, working and now socialising has gone online.
The world, I believe, is about to divide into those who are willing and happy to live online and those who refuse to, because they don’t like it or just can’t manage it.
I believe this coronavirus leaves us at a crossroads. Either we face the fear and do it anyway, or we play it safe behind closed doors, living out our days on Zoom.
Personally, I know I cannot do this. I have always known I am technophobic and have had a computer man help me by coming to my house for years to give me help with things that most people seem able to do themselves, but conference calling makes my eyes water, my heart pound and my head ache.
So I don’t have the luxury of doing relationships or business that way. Of course, I write from home and have done for years, but I have always balanced that by getting up at 6am every day to walk dogs and ride horses and spend as much time as I can in the open air.
I am champing at the bit to get back out there myself, to feel the spiritual nature of human contact.
I spend most of my day outdoors and my best relationships are with my animals. But when my partner, a builder, comes home at the end of the day I always cook us a meal and we always sit down to dinner at the table and make conversation.
Since the lockdown he has come home to find me desperate for human contact, so much so that I fear I am draining him down with my incessant questions about his day. Who has he seen and where has he been? What has he achieved? Did he enjoy himself? What has he got planned for tomorrow?
I am champing at the bit to get back out there myself, to feel the spiritual nature of human contact. If a proportion of the world wishes to sit at home on Zoom, playing it safe by living a virtual life, they must let the rest of us take the risk if we prefer to be in the real world.
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