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The Master Class:
Being Single During Covid
Alone Together — the public service announcement crows on my TV, as various celebrities remind me to stay home, to maintain physical distance, to clear the way for the front-line workers who are just trying to do their jobs and risking their health for us, for the common good. I grasp the seriousness of the pandemic and admire the folks who put their lives on the line in clinics, hospitals, and grocery stores — showing up when the rest of us shelter in place, waiting for the wave to crest, to pass over. My struggle against isolation, cabin fever, climbing the walls of my three-room abode doesn’t compare to working in a COVID ward or even to bagging groceries at Whole Foods.
Still, I am Alone/Alone, reading vignettes about life in the pandemic and listening to the voices of the coupled on the radio, paired up in the darkness. Meanwhile I feel invisible, voiceless, mute. The conversation of life today revolves around those who’ve won the relationship derby while I’ve come in out of the money — didn’t win, place or show.
My struggle is not heroic, my concerns small, tiny, bordering on minute. And yet, I have lots of company in my condition: according to the US Census almost 36-million American adults (28% of all households) live alone, and when I read my newspaper, magazine, or Facebook posts, I wonder where are our…