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Columnist Christina Pohl
Photo:
Roman Pawlowski / DER SPIEGEL
Sabine hugs Thomas.
He presses Sonja very hard again.
Then she takes Moritz in her arms.
He looks blissfully at the sky.
I am standing by and cannot jump over my corona shadow.
At the beginning of our meeting, I announced my personal rules: keep your distance, don't touch!
The others looked at me as if I had suddenly joined a sect or voluntarily become a fruitarian.
And now this heart makes me kind of jealous.
How nice it would be to feel a little warmth again, different bodies than those with which I live in somatic quarantine, i.e. my family.
A strange longing seizes me.
Don't hug anyone, don't get closer to anyone
Sabine, Moritz, Thomas and Sonja had already expanded their Corona crew in early summer.
"No risk, no fun," someone had said.
But my risk assessment showed: dear no fun, unfortunately I belong to the risk group.
So, for the most part, fun was over - and I got weird.
To person
Christina Pohl
was born the year the US bombed Vietnam with napalm.
In her youth she sought peace in the hippie caves of Crete.
She has been working as an editor in the SPIEGEL Group since 1991.
Photo:
Lina Moreno / DER SPIEGEL
It started in February, when things weren't that bad for us.
I was at a big party that would be classified as a potential super-spreader event today.
This virus from China was already mega-scary to me at the time.
And that's why I didn't want to hug anyone or get closer to anyone.
We played a few pieces with our band for the anniversaries.
At that time I didn't know anything about the dangerous aerosols while singing and gave everything.
Interestingly enough, there were also a lot of doctors who took care of any distance rules in the blink of an eye.
I stayed away from them.
Afterwards our guitarist told me that one of them said: "She can sing quite well, but she's a little strange."
What happens when people hardly have any physical contact?
In my self-isolation I had to think a lot about these legendary human experiments with children.
They died because they did not receive any attention.
I remember the genius girl.
Her father wanted to protect the child from the evil "outside world".
Genie was handcuffed to a toilet chair during the day and tied in a sleeping bag at night.
The father did not speak to her, he barked at her like a dog and beat her with a wooden slat at the slightest bang for years.
Genie stayed 1.37 meters short, weighed only 27 kilos, and the saliva was constantly running out of her mouth.
The absence of physical affection seems to have devastating effects on humans.
We are certainly not wolf children, but scientists could now watch and analyze this corona live experiment.
What happens when people have hardly any physical contact and isolate themselves?
You're going crazy.
Apart from every toilet paper hamster index and the pandemic panic, the world has paid far too little attention to it.
We become deserted emotionally, and the disappointment and anger about it has to go somewhere.
Perhaps someone has to take these terribly angry corona deniers into their arms until they stop screaming like system sprinklers.
But I don't do that!
I am angry too.
To everyone who gives a shit about the AHA-Plus-Something rules and celebrates the whole country in the next lockdown.
Tears well up in my eyes when I see banal series scenes
These days young people complain bitterly that they are no longer allowed to let it rip.
Has anyone ever asked us middle-aged people how we feel about not being allowed to sing and dance anymore?
And how do the really old people have to feel in the homes?
Nobody takes her in his arms.
Many live locked up in their houses, and winter does not bode well.
When the relatives come, it must feel like a prison visit under supervision and mask.
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The interesting question is whether the emotions also disappear with the desertification.
I used to find it difficult to be alone, today I sometimes think it's not that bad.
Is that part of aging now or am I talking about the pandemic?
Basically, it is also an experiment on human emotions.
I imagine researchers standing by, watching me too, and realizing that this form of isolation doesn't suit me.
Sometimes I feel strange sadness.
In banal series scenes, I remember life before the virus and tears well up in my eyes.
And interestingly enough, even with comparatively ridiculous acting, this always happens when people get closer.
Singles in the age of touch prohibition
Then the other day I watched Netflix empty-handed and felt the same way.
But the streaming service is always up and running, presumably a measure to maintain public emotional health so we don't cripple and start drooling.
Last week "Social Distance" was released, a pseudo-documentary film adaptation of the lockdown in spring.
In one of the episodes, a lonely alcoholic makes his houseplant his partner.
He cuts the "hair" of the fern, falls asleep with it and talks to the potted plant like Tom Hanks with his volleyball "Wilson" in "Castaway".
I won't end up like this.
In the next few weeks I want to be a researcher and find out how people are coping emotionally with the pandemic.
I will document that at this point.
ATTENTION, cliffhangers!
Maybe I'll sign up for a dating platform under cover.
I am curious to see what creative solutions singles will find in times of contact prohibition.
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