Well, here we are. A few weeks ago, I heard whispers of countries across the globe enforcing measures like social distancing and even complete quarantines to contain the spread of COVID-19. I was on my way home from work when I heard a few brief moments of an interview on NPR with the people behind QuarantineChat, a service that randomly connects you with another person in the world who is in self-isolation. I thought it was a neat idea, but since I was not self-isolating at that time, I didn’t think I should download it, at least not yet. In that moment, I was under the impression that I would maybe never even have to self-isolate, but now I know how naïve that was.
I’ve been working from home and self-isolating since Monday 3/16. I have remained indoors for the vast majority of this time. I am lucky to have a partner and cat to keep me company, but I downloaded DialUp and signed up for QuarantineChat just to see what it was like. When my first call came in at 5:45 EST on Monday, I was ecstatic. My heart was racing – I was nervous, for some reason. I picked up anyway, and was connected with a man in London who was self-isolating with his wife, but he said they were even quarantining themselves from one another a lot of the time. We didn’t share our names, but we shared more than I would have thought. I’d visited the area he lived in while I was in London last year, he’d been to New England, where I live, and we discussed topics like my cat, his favorite French wine bar, and healthcare systems. I walked away from the interaction feeling …good. It’s hard to describe. There’s some joy that comes from sharing a brief interaction with a perfect stranger. The next day, I spoke with a man in Indiana who was recently (as in, it happened that week) unemployed due to the lack of job stability in service industries right now, and later that evening I spoke with a woman in Ecuador who was in complete quarantine with her roommates, but she said it wasn’t so bad because they were cooking a lot and planned to have dance parties together to stay active. There’s something really beautiful about a community of people who’ve decided to talk to strangers in this turbulent time. I’ve had only a few degrees of separation with everyone I’ve spoken with, and have been able to find common ground. Right now, being online and interacting with people can feel overwhelming. Even the good news sometimes feels like a drop in the bucket. However, as sappy as it is, those videos online of people in Italy and Spain on their balconies singing, dancing, and interacting make me a little choked up. Where I am, I don’t have a community like that right outside my window, but I don’t need it. I can use QuarantineChat as my virtual balcony.
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