In my first year of high school, all of my friends lived in my phone. It was the first full school year affected by COVID-19, which meant we were at school in person one day—only taking one four-hour class while we were there—and online again the next. I’d been swept into a friend group practically by accident through class group chats or face-masked icebreakers, and once we’d formed our little group, we stuck together like it was life or death.

We texted constantly: while our cameras were off in school Google Meets, as we sat two metres apart in socially distanced classrooms, and in the middle of eating lunch alone in our separate houses. It’s a lot easier to talk about yourself over the internet—you feel less judged, even if the people you’re talking to wouldn’t have judged you in the first place. I think I was probably more forthcoming in those first weeks of ninth grade than I’d ever been with people before. And the feeling was mutual—despite the fact we didn’t all meet in person for an entire year.

School went back to normal halfway through tenth grade. Even then, I stuck to my familiar friends. The way we’d grouped up over the lockdowns seemed unbreakable. I’d gotten so close to these people over such a short time that doing everything all over again, this time the long way, seemed utterly unmanageable. And there was no reason to switch it up—we got along in person too. These friends knew me better than anyone else, and it was largely due to our weird, codependent COVID-19 bonding and subsequent resistance to change.

The last night before I moved........

© The Walrus