Admittedly, when I stopped writing this blog, I was preparing for the world to end. Not end-end. But I thought I was saying bye to a world I knew, the one I’d spent my life learning to be in and navigate. Maybe you felt that, too? Maybe such a farewell will still happen. Or maybe I was being dramatic.

To be fair, though, as a white male growing up in the privileged bubble that is Perth, Western Australia, the closest I’ve come to a catastrophe was the great hail storm of 2010 which involved ice-clumps the size of tennis balls falling from the sky and onto the roofs of things. And I didn’t even own anything with a roof then, so I was hardly affected. Though I can’t say the same about the owners of the Porches and Mercedes I saw parked in the city on my way to school the following day. Actually, people like me actually benefited from the event because what proceeded the great hail storm was the great hail storm auction which involved those expensive cars I just mentioned being sold for a real steal. My friend Ben got one. And we affectionately called his proud new purchase the acne mobile because of the thousand dimples on the bonnet.

So I’m certainly not experienced in world catastrophes, and I still don’t know what my response should be. What I have learnt, though, is to not follow the masses. At the start of Covid-19, I was marvelling at the panic-buying. And now I’m marvelling at the number of people hugging in public. The movement is like a giant pendulum swing of self-preservation, swaying between the fear of death and a hankering for connection.

That’s what the motives seem to me, especially when someone reaches out for a hug and qualifies outstretched arms by saying, ‘I’m okay with it.’ As in, Not sure about you but I’d rather get sick than go one more day without human touch. If you ever wanted to argue that humans have a hard time with self-restraint, now would be a good case study. Frankly, the encounters are so uncomfortable I’ve found myself hugging back just to ease the awkwardness. The whole interaction feels like a bad one-night-stand. The hugger, having realised the potential consequences of one’s impulses, feels sort of guilty. On the other hand, I, the huggee, feel disgraced, having been so quick to compromise certain values. And much like the chats you have the following morning, the conversation post-hug is always so riddled with feigned niceties and over-corrections, too. Sometimes the hugger will start talking from two metres away as if the extra half a metre of social distancing balances out the whole he-just-brushed-his-face-against-mine thing.

The tension is unbearable. So, even though laws are relaxing, I’ve retreated back into an isolation cave, refusing to take part in another awkward encounter.