How many people are you talking to these days?

[peanutbutter]

In person, asides from possibly someone in a shop when I go shopping, it'll be at most two people a week, more likely to be at most one of those two.
On the phone/skype/etc, my immediate family (4), that's it really.

[bgmnts]

Just one.  Been that way for about 7 years, give or take a few months.


On phone messaging, three.

[peanutbutter]

RE: Messaging (i.e. Whatsapp and Messenger), I've apparently messaged 17 people in the last week, all but 1 of which I initiated. 15 responded to my messages, like half of that responded in a manner that prompted continued talking. That's a pretty high number by my standards and I'm pretty sure it's really obvious I'm messaging them mostly at a total loss over what to do with my time.

[Buelligan]

IRL, zero (apart from the shop thing).  That's the way I like it baby. 

[seepage]

one, myself.

[thenoise]

Rather than reconnecting with old friends I've actually messaged my friends a lot less. I think that's because I'm not big on chatting, I mostly message people in order to meet up or to deliver news. As I cant meet up, and I have no news, doesn't seem much point. What am we going to talk about, our feelings??

[Prison Biscuits]

Absolutely no one face to face for about three weeks. On phone/messenger: two daily, two every week, and then three mates I text or email from time to time just to make sure they haven't been covided.

[timebug]

Face to face, around four folk who live locally (at a safe distance and wearing an all over body condom suit!) and on the phone or videochat, about eight regularly,and another couple now and then!

[imitationleather]

Only my missus face-to-face. That works well for me. If I lived alone the number would be zero and I'd have gone pretty crazy by now. I've been there before.

I talk to quite a few people via Zoom, messenger and the phone. Which is how real men socialise.

[Jasha]

Only my missus face-to-pillow. That works well for me.

[Emma Raducanu]

live with 2 people and we've got some friends about 10 houses down who we wave and talk to from an arbitrarily safe distance. Sometimes we do a bit of shopping for each other. Otherwise, we've been getting on like a house on fire with the couple next door. The storms earlier this year destroyed the fences between our houses so now it feels like one big garden. Because the weather has been so good, we've been in eachothers relative company for a month. We share each others music, exchanged beers, talked and given eachother DIY tips. It's how I imagined people lived in the countryside 100 years ago.

[Icehaven]

Just my other half in person and mostly only my Mum on the phone/video chat, everyone else is messaging on Whatsapp, Facebook etc. Although I have had a few long phonecalls with a colleague/friend a few weeks back and another friend yesterday, both of which were extremely welcome. Starting to forget what some people look like.

[Bence Fekete]

All this "me" time has taught me to reanimate the avatars of my past in my mind. I've watered them up like little mental Tamagotchis in my visual cortex so we can have fully realised grown-up conversations about life and coronavirus. It usually starts with me apologising for being a twat and then they ask me what I'm doing these days and then I show them some of the blueprints for my improvised firearms.

Then we hang out for a bit, drink tea, go swimming; I try to open a wine sometimes but they tell me no, they'd rather I didn't do that if that's okay with me.

It's great. Try it. Avatars from the past. Swimming. Conversations. Coronavirus. Jokes. You'd be surprised who's still alive in there.

[flotemysost]

It varies. My manager has very thoughtfully recognised that I work better when I'm around people, so she's added me to a load of work video meetings that I was never originally invited to, just so I can soak up the interaction.

I keep trying to schedule/initiate group calls (WhatsApp, Houseparty, Zoom etc.) with mates, but I feel like I'm being a needy piece of shit because lots of these people are living with a partner - or if they're single (or partnered but not cohabiting), many of them are in a big flatshares where they're pretty sociable with their flatmates - and when they do join it's for like ten minutes then they're all 'sorry, got to go because WE'RE making dinner/playing a game/fucking' and I just feel like a massive loser.

Got a weekly Skype with my family too, which also tends to contribute to me feeling like a massive loser. But I'm grateful that I've got family I'm even on Skyping terms with, of course.

I basically just need to learn Portuguese so I can do more sociable shit with my own flatmate. I know how to say dick and cunt so that's not a bad place to start.

[idunnosomename]

i have a crocodile, a dinosaur, a cuddlecat and a dog who live in my bed and we have fun adventures under the quilt

[Jockice]

Had a half-hour Whatsapp chat yesterday with a mate of mine who is working in Barbados yesterday (place was in total lockdown, you had alphabetically ordered shopping sessions but now you're allowed to go swimming in the sea between 6 and 9am) I'd also promised to ring someone and break the news about the bloke who died 18 months ago without anyone realising but luckily someone else did it first. I tried to have a video chat with his brother (of the bloke I was meant to ring, not the dead one. He didn't have a brother) but something went wrong so I could hear him but he couldn't hear me so that was abandoned.

Apart from that. my girlfriend on the phone a couple of times (I don't really have to say anything there, just let her ramble on), two Zoom things at which I also said very little (one a union meeting, the other a thing about someone else I knew who had died - all of you who aren't in your 50s yet have all this to look forward to). And I think that's about it apart from bumping into my neighbours (I've met them all at various points apart from her in the flat next door - the only one with a separate entrance. The other five flats have a communal one) and people serving and offering to help me in shops, I think that's it.

Suits me fine actually. I'm crap at talking.

[Jockice]

Oh yeah and a woman from my building society rang last week. She wants to have a meeting with me when the lockdown's over.

Long live the lockdown.

[Jockice]

I tried to have a video chat with his brother (of the bloke I was meant to ring, not the dead one. He didn't have a brother) but something went wrong so I could hear him but he couldn't hear me so that was abandoned.

It was the other way round. He could hear me but I couldn't hear him.

I felt compelled to correct that even though absolutely nobody else on earth gives the very slightest fuck. Thanks for reading though,

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Absolutely no- one.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Some supposed friends haven't even sent me a cursory enquiry about mine or my family/partner's wellbeing, and as I was the last one to initiate contact on several occasions in some cases, I've decided I won't bother contacting them further. If they don't care during a time like this then they are just users and not really friends. If I see them about I'll be civil. If they have a decent excuse I'll hear them out.

In terms of my answer I have been in video contact with:

Family: 4
Real life Friends: 5
Acquaintances: 13
CaB Folk: 13

Still in reasonably common contact with about 20 others via Whatsapp/Messenger.

[Jockice]

I've just remembered the only other person I've actually spoken to during lockdown. It was about three weeks ago, a female friend who had been on a fixed-term contract at work,  reapplied when it finished and didn't even get an interview. She rang me up really upset (crying and everything) but once again I'm sure you lot couldn't give the slightest hint of a fuck.

[Icehaven]

There's a few old friends who I feel a bit bad for not getting in touch with to catch up with (6 weeks in feels a bit too late now) but it hadn't even occurred to me that they haven't contacted me either. In all our defences we haven't actually seen each other for years and live hundreds of miles apart (one in another country), so it's not as if we're suddenly going to make plans to meet up as soon as this is over or anything. Hope they aren't dead anyway.

[Jockice]

Two more today. One is the woman in one of the upstairs flats who was coming in just as I was letting the cat out. She'd been to the park.

The other was a female friend who I mentioned in another thread not long ago. The one who took my 'anything really' when asked if I wanted something to eat as an invitation to make an extravaganza of stuff I couldn't eat. I haven't actually seen her in person since that day (approaching two decades ago) and have only spoken to her a couple of times on the phone. But she decided to ring me on Facebook messenger. Turned out she was in the kitchen making an extravaganza of stuff I couldn't eat. Some things never change. Nice to chat to her anyway.

Oh and my girlfriend rang me this morning too. But that turned out to be a mistake as she was doing some shopping and the phone was in her pocket. So we never spoke.

[weekender]

FUCK OFF I'M PERFECTLY FINE

[Sebastian Cobb]

Had a nice little chat on google hangouts with pals last night but they did also laugh at me 'cos my fridge was in view and I had to explain the writing on it was a list of meals I intend to cook.

'do you have to do them in that order'
'what if you decide to have something else'

Ffs I don't live in strict accordance to the list, it's just so I don't forget and allow the stuff I bought to go off.

[mrpupkin]

I want to stay in touch with people more than I am actually doing, because I like to see people face to face and have never been one for long phone calls or text chats. I am doing these things now of course but perhaps not as much as I could be, with the exception of someone I'm very much falling for and therefore massively enjoying any contact I can get. But everyone else...cigs tbh. Is anyone else finding it a chore sometimes, like you finish work for the day and then you've got all this social admin to do? And there's not really anything to catch up on because you've both just been indoors shoving biscuits up your arse?

[A Hat Like That]

In a block of flats, on the ground floor, which opens out directly onto communal central garden so, when the weather's OK, that gets used as a socially distant lunch spot. You can sit on your 'front patio' and have a solid if shouted conversation. Three of us are regulars at the local pub so we're keeping an eye out. Just ordered a crate of Bathams in for the older lad on the top floor. In addition to that, there's another three or four flats I've got to know much better over the last weeks.

Jewellery Quarter is like a village so every time I take my 1 a day or go to the shop I see someone I know. It has kept me broadly sane.

Work (at a local University) is solid gold balls so taking everything I can.

[The Culture Bunker]

Face to face, I've not spoken to anyone beyond "thanks" (to checkout staff) since the end of March.

On the phone - I speak to my dad twice a week, my manager every few days and another work colleague once a week, plus the other half most days on Skype.

Oh, and a cat miaowed at me yesterday when I was putting the empties in the recycle bin, which was nice.

A couple of weekends ago, a fair few people from the building gathered out back to drink and chat in the sunshine, but fucked if I want any part of that nonsense.

[alan nagsworth]

My partner and I are fortunate (in London) to have a ground floor flat which is a house conversion with lovely neighbours on both sides and often pop out for little chats in the back garden if we see each other outside having lunch or pottering with the flowers. Chap on one side bought us some pretzels back from a local German bakery this past weekend so I gave him some of the peanut butter and raspberry brownies I baked yesterday. IT'S ALL VERY FUCKING QUAINT.

We video chat with members of our close families once every week or so, and closest pals every now and again too. Nice to have a beer together and all feel awkward when more than one person speaks at the same time but the software only allows one voice to come through. Mostly I infrequently chat with about 10 close mates via text, which is no different from pre-lockdown to be honest.

I started recording my electronic drum kit via MIDI today and am hoping to set up some remote collaborations with other musically minded friends which could be fun!

Oh yeah, the other week my best friend came over on his moped totally unannounced with a bag of beers and sat at the end of my front path, and we caught up for a couple of hours. It felt fucking bizarre. He's not a big social media type and isn't talkative via text at all so I've missed him an awful lot. When I opened my front door and saw his face, it felt like some weird dream. I know you and I recognise you and I love you dearly but who the fuck are you!

[Small Man Big Horse]

Face to Face: I live in a shared house with five others (technically six but one's been stuck in Tunisia the whole time this has been going on), three of whom I like, one of whom is okay and one of whom is an absolute bell end. Can't say I talk to them any more or less than before the lockdown though, and it's mostly just when I'm cooking / cleaning and about 20 minutes a day.

Video chat: Well this is my job, so I talk to between 15 - 18 Chinese children a day, and two or three French adults. I also talk to the new Mrs SMBH this way sometimes, and sometimes on the phone, have had one "online pub session" with three other friends, and another one booked with different friends for Thursday. Oh, and each week my Sister and mother do the zoom thing for 90 minutes, an idea of my sister's which I'll never forgive her for as it involves my mum talking all about her elderly friends and their various horrendous problems (none of which are coronavirus related) the whole time, and because it's via video chat I can't roll my eyes or mouth swear words while she talks like I used to in the good old day of telephone conversations.

Hot sexy phone chat: Just the missus. But for a small fee I am prepared to consider offers from you lot.

Text Chat: Varies, probably about three people on a regular basis, and then I have random messages on an infrequent basis from about five others.

All in all I'm happy with the above, well, not the face to face bit, I miss the new Mrs SMBH an enormous amount, but the rest of it is okay.