COVID Has Killed The Familiar

Here’s a funny thing. Five months into Lockdown 2, the people I’m starting to miss a lot are the ones whose names I don’t know. I miss my friends of course. But we’re all still in touch.

Some went back to small towns to be with parents. Sometimes that meant back to other countries. Some became hermits. Some are overworked, covering for their sick, furloughed and fired collegues.

Some like me, relocated to sunnier climes where I’ve met a lot of other kindred souls from around the continent. Our common thread was being single, living alone, working from home, in Northern European winters. And depressed as hell. It’s no small thing to be able to do the World Wide Wait from somewhere like this. 

But even before I left, I got together with people sporadically. When we had time and the inclination to walk through a freezing Berlin with nowhere inside to rest. Or sit on opposite ends of a couch eating pizza. That’s how badly we wanted to see another soul.

Tight friendships became even tighter. Zoom and VChats have gone from annoying happy hours, to one on one lifelines. COVID has stripped away all but the most close and intimate people in our lives.

In the novel about my divorce, I wrote what I thought at the time was a great truism. “The only things that matter in this life are Family and Friends. Everything else is Instagram.” 

But this statement isn’t exactly true for two reasons. I post Berlin Stories and lots of other stuff on Instagram. So it does kind of matter a bit I guess. Goddammit.

But the second reason is because that doesn’t take into account a very special class of friend whose absence I’ve mourned through COVID. Without even realizing it. A kind of friend that has totally disappeared from our lives. 

One of my favorite things about learning new languages is discovering words for concepts we feel, but are nameless in our mother tongues. It took my German friend Uli to point out that we have a great word in English that there’s no equivalent for in many other languages. For this mystery class of friend.

A Familiar. It’s very old fashioned. My grandmother used it.

Familiars are people you like but are connected to tenuously. They are in the peripheral vision of your friendship lenses. The friend of a friend whose number you have but never call. You like each other’s stuff on Instagram. And you’re always happy to see each other in a group at a restaurant or a movie. You’d never zoom them. But you miss their voices.

Then the next level of Familiar is the guy who sometimes had shifts my local Späti. He was always up for a chat. The guy I used to work out with at the gym when we saw each other there. I don’t even know his name. The girl with the face tatt that fascinated me who worked in the local donut shop. People I had little chats with about the news, the weather, the price of cabbage. And then the price of facemasks.

Working From Home starves me of the hallway chats, music updates from the security guard that likes the same bands, and general watercooler nonsense with co-workers.

But then there are other Familiars, the featured background extras who you’ve never shared a word with. The ones who may not even know that you exist. But they exist for you. Like an older man with a cool dog who frequented my local café. It was always just the two of them; him smoking thin cigars over coffee, and his dog snoring at his feet, drooling on a shoe.

The older German woman with short hair, dyed Run Lola Run red and the bedazzled hoodie who is always sitting on her balcony. That woman has seen more than the TV Tower.

The young student couple I often saw sitting outside in the local park. If they weren’t counting coins they were arguing playfully about whose turn it was to buy beers. Or they were the other’s pillow as they played with each other’s hair.

Familiars are the people you spotted at the same clubs and concerts. The ones who rode in the same carriage, same time, every morning. The coat check girl with the cheeky smile.

Turns out these strangers are anything but. Familiars are System Relevant. They are the landmarks by which we navigate our daily lives. Like the fascia under our skin. Not a muscle per se, but the connective tissue between them all, holding them in place. Especially when our muscles are weak.

Turns out, having all but the most essential friendships totally stripped away was more impactful than I understood. Because I miss my Familiars terribly. But I’m glad it happened so I could understand how important they’ve always been. Scientists have discovered that these, “weak ties,” as they call them, are as essential to our mental wellbeing as our besties. Familiars are a key part of how we are feel known and perceived. Yet another item on the “Things COVID Has Taught Me” list. This one up at the top.

As more and more of us get vaccinated and we return to whatever our new lives will be, I’ll be glad to see all these nameless friends again. As weird as it may sound to them, I might even tell a few Familiars, “I missed you.”

And I can’t wait to resume my own Familiar duties for people whose names I don’t even know. People who I may not even know exist.