As irony would have it, I am writing to you from a Hilton Inn, where I am currently quarantining after having tested positive for COVID-19 this past week.
For my first article, I wanted to write about something that has been on my mind (like everyone else’s) for the past two years: the pandemic. “Unprecedented times” does not even begin to describe the odd limbo that the virus has put us in. I feel that this pandemic has had a very particular effect on young people in college or even high school. Not that it has hit the younger demographic harder or worse, just differently. Navigating the moral and social intricacies of being in a pandemic as a college student in America is head-spinning, to say the least.
I’m sure when a high school senior envisions what their freshman year of college will look like, they think of a big in-person orientation, parties at friends’ dorms, getting into bars with a fake ID, university sports games, clubbing after an exhausting week of classes, and soaking up every opportunity there is to explore their independence in a new environment with new friends. For college students from five years ago, this all seems incredibly doable and relatively stress-free. For college students today, going out involves catch-twenty-twos and contradictory consideration in (sometimes) a literal life-or-death situation.
Even a simple plan like your friends wanting to go out to a bar tonight sends the mind into a mind-swirling inner monologue with a never-ending cycle of questions:
“Are people going to be masked? Of course, they’re not going to be masked, it’s a bar. Will my friends be masked? I wouldn’t ask them to do that. Can I ask them to do that? If I ask them to wear a mask will they think I’m judging them? Will they think I’m lame? Will I look like a loser if I wear a mask? I can’t control what they do. I can’t tell them to not go out even though I’m scared they’ll expose me. Are they inconsiderate people for going out unmasked? How can that be, they’re my friends! I know they’re good people. Are they going to catch COVID? Am I going to catch COVID? Maybe I just shouldn’t go. Even if I don’t go, they’ll still go and be exposed and I see them unmasked every day so I might as well be getting it. But what if that’s not the case? What if they get it and I don’t? In that case, I should stay home. But I want to go out! I’ve been staying home the entire semester watching other people go out. I want to have fun. But I don’t want COVID. Maybe I can just wear a mask around them after they’ve come back. But that’ll make me look stupid. Maybe I should just go. But I know I’ll be uncomfortable! I don’t want COVID, but I do want friends and a social life!”
After this inner monologue, it always seems like there is no winning. If you don’t go out, you’re missing out on that quintessential college experience. If you do go out, you’re exposing yourself (and others) to the virus. It gets to the point where you have to choose between doing nothing and giving yourself a watered-down version of your life as a college student, or thrusting yourself into the void and taking the chance of catching COVID-19.
Even trying to find a middle ground between these two extremes poses uncomfortable questions and scenarios. For young people nowadays, it’s almost embarrassing or “ not cool” to wear a mask. Although it is required in most universities to wear a mask, when school is out of session it is up to the individual to decide whether or not to wear their mask. It takes courage to be the only one in a room to be wearing a mask, and it takes even more courage to be able to ask those around you to put one on (properly). It all seems so high stakes to advocate for your health these days as someone in a social scene full of college freshmen. How do you even go about asking someone to put on a mask without offending them or seeming like a nark? How do you navigate balancing your feelings in the moment, and longer-lasting things like time with your friends and fun memories? No one can know for sure, and I guarantee that even when the pandemic has ended, no one will have found an answer to all that. When looking cool seems to take precedence over being safe, it can open our eyes to what is really important to us.
None of this is to say that anyone is a bad person for choosing to not wear a mask outside of school. It’s understandable to want to take off that KN95 mask for some fresh air and a sense of regular life. However, it certainly means that we must pick and choose who, what, and where we decide to be maskless around. Being around people who you feel comfortable with during this “unprecedented time” is crucial for one’s well-being in all aspects of life. The pandemic has certainly opened our eyes to who we can trust and whose morals align with ours. Having an open, communicative relationship with our friends and family during this time requires us to assert ourselves and express our needs and boundaries more than we have had to in the past. I am in no way saying that this pandemic has been a complete blessing, but it certainly has taught us a lot about ourselves and the people we surround ourselves with. Things will never be the same, and I leave it up to you to decide if that is for the better, the worse, or somewhere in the middle.