Gathering as Restorative
So you want to hang out with your friends. We provided three ideas depending on your preference for connecting. Get on with your bad self and make a plan with your bad good friend.
Extravert, Group Settings, Food/Drink Based – What do all these sections have in common? These preferences favor a way to connect with people which has been severely impacted by Covid. Restaurants, cafes, and bars are closed. Group gatherings banned, and hugging has been a little faux pas considering the public health concerns. It fucking sucks when you need that direct human contact. Our suggestion is to pick a date where the weather is going to be lovely for a hike and picnic. These activities will allow you to gather and do so socially distantly if needed. You and your friends can hike around campus, through the city area the university is located, or even find a nearby trail. From what we can observe from our little corners of the world, the outdoors is not as populated as it was in April 2020, but a quick search on Google can tell you how popular a park has become – like seriously Joanna, you are going to give the park three stars because the pollen levels are too high? When you ask your friends to come hike with you, ask them also to bring something for the picnic at the end. A blanket, drinks, chips, bread, stuff to put inside the bread…by breaking it into individual responsibility not only means you need to carry less on the hike but also means it is the most cost-effective to you and all of your friends. If it’s just a hike between you and a small few, you can make it a bring your own lunch pail sort of experience as well. Maybe ask Joanne to bring her Zyrtec or whatever.
Introvert, One-on-One, Project-Based – Your preference to connect with people is a little less impacted by Covid, but it is not like hanging out with a friend is impossible. One of Krista’s strengths is she is super great at curating a gift basket for her friends that are physically or mentally just having shit days. Ayrielle’s last BGF basket from Krista was a book about ancient Romans from one of her favorite scholars, a couple of facemasks specific for dry skin, and a couple of bottles of her favorite Italian soda pop. Take a cue from Krista. Grab a few items that have thought and consideration of what your friends like and what they are struggling with. The budget can be small, no need to go all out like get an imported Italian soda pop. If they need to relax, grab an extra sheet mask from your personal pile to add to the basket, go get a few snacks from the campus convenience store and have a magazine as a big-ticket item. If you pull pieces that reflect your friend’s interest and let them know you are listening, the basket won’t go wrong. To make it more of an exchange, ask your friend if they want to do a box exchange. Ayrielle has had a great experience with this with friends from other places, “you give me your favorite regional snacks, and I will give you some from Indiana.” Once you agree on the parameters (what is going to be exchanged or what the price limit is), figure out how and when you are going to make the exchange of these baskets. Once exchanged, talk with your friend about the items you wanted to share and what you were happy to receive.
Covid is Still Here and Still Real – Truth. We get it, but at the same time, your friends and family might not want to be on another ZOOM talk with you. While the virtual space still feels a safe place for you (which you should always confirm in your communications with your friends), you might want to think of new avenues to connect and bond with your support system. Megan Farokhmanesh wrote an article for the Verge [LINK1] that video games became the outlet for 55% of Americans – Animal Cross and Among Us being the top of the charts. Chances are you played these games, and chances also might be that they lost their allure which is why you took the quiz to find new alternatives. Ayrielle knows after a week after Pokemon Go went live, she felt that she caught all that she could catch in her area and got bored. Many of her friends played at the time and when they got bored also, they collectively thought about taking day trips to places not far to see what would be new. Covid and new games in mind, you might want to consider the same thing. As you might felt that you developed the best island possible on Animal Crossing, you might want to take a small trip to a local park and see if you can mimic the natural terrain on your own island. Ask a friend to do the same. Then at an agreed-upon time, you visit your friend’s island, or your friend visits your island, and you can show them around. What did you see at the local park that you are trying to mimic here? This can be an icebreaker to connect or reconnect with friends, but you also get a chance to go outside in a safe natural environment, get vitamin D, and some endorphins. I would recommend doing this for any game in which you can create an environment – Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Valheim…etc. While you are exploring the real-world environment, take detailed notes of what you are going to go back to copy. Ask yourself these questions: What is happening here? What are my thoughts about this terrain? What is good about it, what is bad about it? Does it make sense to mimic in my game? What would I do differently (if I had the skill or the ability to redesign it, and if not could I do this instead of that)? If the game doesn’t allow another player into your space, you may want to connect with a friend from another platform (maybe ZOOM share a screen?) with your friend that is also playing that game to show them what you were able to create. Some games like Among Us might allow local multi-player but do not have a creative component where you have to go out in the real world and bring back homework to show-and-tale. Instead, you might want to gather your friends to play – or create a stream like Twitch – and have your friends bring a topic of discussion up. The Vlogbrothers – John Green and Hank Green – have a YouTube Game channel [LINK2] where they play a video game often discussing topics brought to them by their community of nerdfighters. Think about the structure of your friend connect be like this. Know that you all will be playing or watch someone play a game at a certain time. Predetermine a topic of discussion before the game goes live – say about a certain book you all have read, the social commentary you want to provide, a trip to a local park you visited, whatever – and discuss it at the length it takes to have the gameplay out. You’re going to receive the same benefits you would have on a traditional game night. Fun activity and good conversation. Plus if it is a game that you are feeling a little lackluster about, having a predetermined conversation gives you something to look forward to and allows you to be entertained at the moment.
Restore – Depending on how you like to connect with people, those are all ideas on what activities you can do in your type of gathering style. But how do these activities restore you? The National Alliance of Mental Illness [LINK3] wrote a most excellent blog to summarize doctoral-level medical jargon about how gathering with friends is a human necessity. Having friendships and gathering with them help builds a sense of community and builds the support system that gives you a feeling of purpose. And that’s part of what BGF is trying to do, we want you to feel a positive sense of self and live in the community you helped to cultivate. You sometimes need to separate yourself from your work to remind yourself you belong in this amazing community, but you also need to separate yourself from the isolation of trying to keep you and your community safe. So text your bad good friend now, ask them if they want to do one of these three activities next week. We want to hear back about what you all ended up doing, and how it made you all feel.
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