Life on the Other Side of the Bubble

All this social distancing, all this not touching and hugging each other, all this super-sanitizing everything and acting like Lady Macbeth after we’ve touched something that anyone else has touched...while it will help get most of us through the immediate COVID-19 crisis, it absolutely can’t go on forever, and there are a number of good reasons why.

First of all, because it makes us less human.

Let’s face it, we humans are social creatures. We need to be around others like us, we need to be near others like us, we need to hold and touch others like us; and while this whole six feet apart thing may be good for us medically, it’s absolutely horrible for us psychologically. It not only distances us from those we want, or need, to be with, but it trains us to think of others as things, as walking vectors of virus that could kill us, and should be avoided at all costs, rather than as fellow humans who are also suffering through this and need human companionship and touch too.

I think of the kids who can’t play with each other, and who after we slowly get back to whatever “normal” will look like, won’t be able to sit next to each other at school and interact with each other as kids do. I think of the simple act from my days in kindergarten, of having a “line partner” who you held hands with as you walked to the playground for recess. Will we have kids do that anymore? Will we let kids do that anymore?

And speaking of holding hands, what do we do about budding romances? Will holding hands be seen as something two people need to be as cautious about as they would having sex? And, oh my goodness...kissing! Are we really going to put our mouths on someone else’s mouth after all this? Are we really going to put our tongues in someone else’s mouth after all this? Heck...having sex with face masks on might just be considered safer than kissing!

No...at some point we’ll have to get past this and return to what makes us human again. Maybe...and I shudder to say this...but maybe we’ll sadly just have to let this thing burn through enough of us so that those of us who are left don’t have to worry about it, and can go back to being human...but will also have a greater appreciation for being human.

The second reason we can’t go on like this forever is because, ironically, there’s such a thing as being too clean. Yes, you saw that right...too clean.

If we’re too clean, we don’t get enough early exposure to the many germs out there that we need to build up our resistance to. I’ve seen articles that suggest that our obsession with cleanliness over the past 60 years could be one of the reasons we’ve seen so many food allergies. I’ve also read that polio didn’t become a big problem until better sanitation meant that children weren’t exposed to it earlier, and with less harmful effects.[1]

With that in mind, there’s something to the old saying that you have to eat a pound of dirt before you die...and maybe even something to the 5-Second Rule.

Yes, now we’re painfully aware of how many germs we spread every day, but most of them don’t do us any harm, because our exposure to them builds up our immunity to them. We just happened to have stumbled onto a really bad one.

But the simple fact of the matter is that we can’t go on eating alone forever. We can’t sterilize every basketball, library book, doorknob, or restaurant table. People have to be able to go back to sitting next to each other on buses and trains, having college roommates, and kissing and hugging each other.

Especially kissing and hugging each other.

And I want to be able to do that again soon!