You don't have to be so socially distant when playing Final Fantasy XIV online.
My friends and I were taking a pit stop after an aimless drive when we heard a stranger loudly invite anyone within earshot to her friends' party. Our plans had ended at "go for a drive;" before that, we were loitering between some collapsed columns in a crystalline wasteland.
We debated whether to attend from inside our car. The party seemed a little raunchy—its promoter, Nina, a minuscule woman with pink blush marks painted on either side of her button nose, advertised "drinks and good company" but also "ERP," which stands for "erotic role-play." That's not generally our thing. We're more stand-outside types than the types to cast a flashy glamour spell and chat up the nearest cat girl. But, hey, it's Final Fantasy XIV online, and where my body sat in New York, the epicenter of America's Covid-19 outbreak, there certainly weren't any parties.
On Fridays, Saturdays, and basically any given weeknight, my Brooklyn neighborhood is alive with throbbing house music, over-earnest open mics, DJ sets, roiling apartment bashes, and cars blasting reggaeton. In this new-normal world, events as we know them no longer exist, unless you count texting your 20 closest acquaintances a DRINKS ON ZOOM!!!! invite, give or take a couple of cloying emojis. With all of this newfound time to overthink the mundane, I recognize now that social outings are dedicated units of time for self-expression, coloring-book pages onto which we and our friends draw outlines that we pour ourselves into. Social distancing has separated us from our social contexts; without them, all the color drains out.
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