Navigating Post-Pandemic Relationships In Your 20s
On the eve of 2020, I was a lost, carefree college sophomore studying Spanish language and education. My little problems felt heavy. Not as looming as they were when I was, say 14, but they still feel trivial looking back.
My school announced an extra week of spring break that March because some people had gotten sick around our city. My family set off on a cruise bound for the Bahamas without any way of knowing all that was happening back home. Ours was the last ship to head to sea before what became a two-year shutdown. POV: You come home from vacation and suddenly you can’t even buy a roll of toilet paper.
I made an appointment at school to pack my bags when no one else would be in my hall. I said goodbye to my friends and boyfriend of two years, and I drove back home with my parents—an hour and a half from my university town and the life I’d been building there.
I am incredibly lucky (and grateful!) that my family and friends all made it safely to the other side of the pandemic. I can’t begin to count the number of stories that ended differently. For me, the lockdown was a personal reset. I painted, wrote music, took up running (and promptly stopped), went on walks, and spent time with my family. My boyfriend and I met up as often as we could, usually in the parking lot of a Walmart halfway between our towns. We Facetimed every night, growing closer watching movies together or talking on the phone for hours.
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My story isn’t totally uncommon–many relationships grew stronger during the pandemic, and some people found that their personal growth outweighed the costs of losing friendships and romantic partners.
Will, 24, left a toxic relationship during COVID. “I feel like I understood the people around me in a different way,” he says of his friendships after the breakup. “I used to feel like I was in a shell where it was better not to speak at all or contribute to conversations. We were all so secluded during the pandemic, and after, everyone was like ‘We’re going to be going back and doing so many fun things,’ and for me, [the anticipation of returning to in-person activities] led me to meet way more people and grow more confident than if I hadn’t had that time alone.”
He’s not the only one. Aidan, 25, met his now fiance online in 2021, just before the world opened back up. He says, “My fiancé and I met online because of the pandemic. Neither of us would have been using dating sites if we’d had more opportunities to go out and meet new people. We moved in together after about a year, and when we both got COVID, we didn’t have to quarantine alone. It was honestly the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Linda, 23, says that she technically saw all of her friendships survive the pandemic, “A friend of mine was going through a lot, and our relationship sort of fizzled out. She needed to do what was right for her, and she did.”
On the other side of the pandemic, Linda says they reevaluated their relationship, and things are looking bright. “It was a weird time, but the end brought some of my friendships even closer together. By 2022, [my friend] had matured so much emotionally that it was healing for our friendship. It made me want to be there for her even more.”
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Post-pandemic loneliness
Not every story ends on such a positive note. Two long years later, while my boyfriend and I were doing better than ever, I returned to school to an off-campus apartment to find that my ‘circle’ had fallen apart. Friends moved, found new jobs, or just stopped wanting to go out on the weekends. RIP to study dates and my annual Halloween party.
I was so EXCITED to be back in the swing of things that I didn’t realize just how many people had absolutely no interest in going out. While I maintained my closest relationships, I couldn’t tell you how many ‘weekend friends’ I never saw again.
If this sounds familiar to you, you’re not alone. Hartford Healthcare reports that changes in weekly commitments such as church services, classes, or extracurriculars have impacted the longevity of many proximity-based relationships. In many cases, friend groups dwindled down to just individuals.
This summer, I asked Not Wasting My Twenties members to share their own experiences with post-pandemic relationships and loneliness, and here’s what they had to say:
“I feel like I see my friends less than before. My relationship with my boyfriend is stronger because the pandemic gave us a lot of time to hang out alone and grow closer. Still, it seems like everyone else fell into their own routines and is content spending more time alone. It can be really isolating.”
- Grace, 22
“I’m a pandemic graduate. Lots of my friends moved across the country after college. We didn’t see each other for a year, and then they were gone. Now, we mostly keep in touch through online gaming together. We all have really busy careers, and sometimes that’s the only way we can spend time together."
-Conner, 23
“The pandemic made me a lot more anti-social. Being around a lot of people makes me uncomfortable, which is weird because I used to love being around people. Now that I’m back in college, and meeting people with similar interests, I feel like I’m getting back out there a little more.”
-Simon, 20
“Nothing changed in my romantic relationship [since the pandemic]. I don’t really hang out with any of my friends anymore. Most of them are online on Discord. I think it’s cool to have friends around the country. I fly to visit them whenever I can.”
-Shaylea, 20
“I’ve been thinking about [the pandemic] a lot. I think it has made me realize that you have less time [with your loved ones] than you think you do growing up. Honesty has become important to me. Making the most of quality time and being present has become an important facet of my remaining relationships.”
- Harrison, 24
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Why are 20-somethings so lonely? Are we doomed to shift more and more relationships to online platforms until we’re back in a new kind of lockdown? Abigail Shackley, a behavioral therapist and graduate of Daemen University in Amherst, New York says that the relationships of Zillenials—a new term coined to refer to young people who don’t quite fit the mold of Gen Z or Millennials—while strained, are not necessarily doomed.
Not Wasting My Twenties: Can you speculate on how the pandemic may have affected people’s interest in going out and spending time with their loved ones?
Abigail Shackley: In behavioral science, we look at how behaviors are shaped by reinforcements– whether positive or negative. We also know that every behavior has a consequence. This, too, can be good or bad.
We live in a time when everything is cataloged online. When people posted stories of themselves out and about during the pandemic, they received negative reinforcement– whether through critical comments on a post or disapproving remarks from family. When they stayed in, they received praise, or at the very least a sense of safety, which is considered a positive reinforcement. Basically, ‘If I do this, I will receive approval, a reward, etc.’
While staying at home was so important, we may have inadvertently trained our brains to associate going out with a negative outcome. Even worse, those predisposed to mental health issues may still associate public spaces with fear, sickness, or paranoia.
All of this depends on your natural temperament, or your extrovertedness or introvertedness, but it is no secret that lots of introverts were ‘born’ during COVID. It may have exacerbated underlying fears of being around lots of people. Those socially mediated reinforcements may not exist anymore, but the intrinsic factors are still present– especially for those with anxious or introverted tendencies.
NWM20s: Many of our followers noted that while they lost in-person relationships during the pandemic, they nurtured their online relationships. From a psychological perspective, are the benefits of the two the same?
Shackley: We are very sure, scientifically, that physical presence is vital to relationships. That’s not to say that online relationships are any less real– it’s just that they often lack the depth of in-person friendships. These relationships can still be meaningful, but again, it all goes back to your natural personal tendencies. Certainly, not all elements of a strong partnership, whether romantic or otherwise, can be recreated virtually.
Connecting exclusively online can also cause people to hyper-fixate on their relationship– especially when that is their only means of communication with the outside world. The pandemic was the perfect setup for many of those situations to become toxic. There is evidence to suggest that the physical health benefits of a relationship, like endorphin or oxytocin release, occur differently in online-only relationships. This can feed that toxicity as well.
NWM20s: The world has been ‘reopened’ for two years now. Why are so many 20-somethings still experiencing stunted relationships?
Shackley: This is a complex question. There isn’t a lot of data yet on just how many young people have lost friends or romantic partners over the past few years. This is due, in part, to the fact that it can be difficult to measure the strength of a relationship. It’s very subjective.
There are quite a few factors to consider here. One, as I mentioned, is that I believe habit formation is playing a huge role in the decline of ‘in-person’ relationships. It’s that ‘positive/negative’ reinforcement again.
It sounds backwards but many people experienced burnout from quarantine or social-distancing. Your social battery is like a muscle. The longer you go without interacting with people, the less your mind seeks out those connections. This is one explanation for why there are so many ‘introverts-turned-extroverts’ post-COVID.
Something else to consider is the impact on mental health. Isolation exacerbated or brought out anxiety and depression in many people. Apart from loneliness and loss, just existing in such a tumultuous time can cause quite a bit of distress. These aren’t problems that magically disappear once everything reopens. If anything, that change could worsen symptoms. Being preoccupied with mental illness, stress, or anxiety very quickly moves relationship maintenance down a person’s list of priorities. Of course, there is also the looming reminder that your 20s are supposed to be the best years of your life, and they appear to be slipping away.
NWM20s: You’ve spoken a lot about friendships, which are so important. Could you elaborate a little more on romantic relationships?
Shackley: Of course. These are tricky because a lot of the outcomes here really depend on the length and quality of your relationship during the onset of the pandemic. Studies have found that communication increased significantly in already long-term relationships during the pandemic. Even these relationships were tested. Still, I’m sure that was particularly hard on new relationships. We don’t have great data on this yet, but I am interested in getting my eyes on the number of new relationships that survived lockdown.
I personally saw many new relationships end prematurely. They didn’t really stand a chance. That is a lot of strain on something so new. Even in those long-term relationships, we’ve seen a lot of people grow as individuals, and that has changed what they’re looking for in a partner.
We know that domestic violence rates skyrocketed over the past few years. Victims suddenly had less means to leave than ever before. Abuse is very isolating, and that was multiplied by shelter-in-place orders. Post-pandemic, some of these relationships were pushed to the brink and finally ended, while others were cemented into a dangerous pattern.
I’m also interested to see what becomes of relationships that started mid-pandemic. COVID-19 definitely changed the dating game. Dating apps have been around for quite a while, but virtual dates started to emerge during that time, and not many people have seen the long-term results of that.
NWM20s: What is the outcome for 20-somethings? Is there hope that relationships will ever go back to normal? Do you think we will ever fully see the return of friend groups going out every weekend and couples spending more time in public?
Shackley: I certainly think we’ve already watched a large portion of people begin to bounce back. Because 20-somethings are so young, it will be something that research has to catch up with. It will be a long time before we know how this really affects not only the brain’s development but the way society views relationships.
There is no doubt that this will have a lasting impact, but from a personal perspective, I have a lot of hope. Relationships that did survive the pandemic are stronger than ever before. New post-pandemic relationships have lots of hope too, especially for those people willing to seek out connections. People may spend time differently with one another, but that’s been changing for all of history.
People are resilient. Even though feelings of fear continue to linger, we still value human connection as much as ever. There is certainly hope in that.