Out of touch: Psychologists weigh in on how COVID-19 has impacted close relationships for emerging adults.
Emma focused her eyes on the window and willed the sun to rise in the sky. She needed a new beginning. While she waited for the first signs of morning Emma succumbed to the motionless air that weighed down on her chest. Her boyfriend, Sean, did not have air conditioning in his outdated off-campus apartment. A single fan recirculated the stale August air around the room. The only relief Emma had, however fleeting, was the cool breeze she felt on her legs when she thrashed beneath the sheets. The bed shifted with every move she made, waking Sean and prompting him to groggily drape his arm over her body, slick with sweat. She was suffocating.
Emma, 20, had never had a boyfriend before. When she met Sean, she just wanted something fun to break her streak of firsts and gush to her friends about. But Sean, a seasoned dater, had other plans. He told her he loved her just a month into dating. Was that normal? Emma had no clue.
Emma’s fears in her relationship were not limited to the rapid acceleration of intimacy she experienced with Sean. There was another fear that lingered just beyond the four walls of his bedroom that continued to close in on Emma: COVID-19. The summer started with walks in the park and backyard hangouts. But as time went on, Emma said the couple started to “disobey the rules.” At first it was exciting, even exhilarating, to do something different and risky after months of monotony. But she couldn’t shake the lingering guilt that came with spending time maskless and indoors with her boyfriend who she had only started dating in March of 2020. Her parents never gave her pushback when it came to inviting Sean into their home, it was Emma who had her doubts.
“At first it was great because we had each other to lean on,” said Emma. “We were in this little bubble which was really good for the first couple months and then it was too much. I just wanted to get out of there.”
Her heightened awareness and constant questioning of the what-ifs dulled the fun she expected from a first relationship. Sean’s loose interpretations of COVID restrictions drove a further wedge between them. He was willing to make exceptions to the rules when it came to spending with Emma while she struggled to do the same. She couldn’t keep up with the pace Sean set for their relationship and the pandemic made their differences hard to ignore.
Emma’s experience is similar to many other young people on the edge of adulthood. The pandemic scattered them, plucking them from the life they created for themselves and placing them back into their childhood bedrooms. Some didn’t even have the company of their family and were further isolated in lonely apartments. COVID restrictions made tending to this loneliness even more difficult, as the prospect of meeting new people shifted almost exclusively online. Couples that never signed up for long distance dating endured weeks, even months apart no matter how far they lived from each other. Those who were without a partner once social isolation began faced another slew of challenges: How could you date, when a date might kill you?
Isolation in the absence of a typical dating life and separation from friends although necessary in slowing the spread of COVID-19, has become challenging for those with mental health conditions according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Concerns relating to mental health are especially relevant for those ages 18-29 who make up the highest percent of adults with symptoms of depression and anxiety, according to the CDC. Maintaining human connection through close relationships has become a crucial part of our survival during COVID.
“We are hardwired for what's called the need to belong, the need to be around other people,” said Richard Slatcher, a professor of social psychology and researcher of relationships at the University of Georgia. “If you've ever seen the movie, ‘Cast Away’ with Tom Hanks shipwrecked on an island, he forms a friendship with a volleyball called Wilson. That's a good demonstration of this effect in the absence of social relationships.”
The human need to connect—it’s a matter of survival
Karla Vermeulen, associate professor in the State University of New York at New Paltz psychology department and deputy director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health, has been conducting research for her upcoming book on what she calls “generation disaster.” She is investigating how emerging adults have been affected by stressors related to coming of age in a post-9/11 world. Experiences with the pandemic, according to Vermeulen, deviate from the typical timeline of coping with disasters since there is still no clear end in sight. Our nervous systems are not equipped to cope with such prolonged exposure to a threat that could trigger a fight or flight response.
“The best source of comfort and support for people is social connection,” said Vermeulen. “And the fact that [socialization] has been shut down or severely restricted during the pandemic just completely exacerbates what was already difficult for many young people to begin with.”
In a survey she conducted among young adults, over 92 percent of respondents reported restricted socialization with friends and over 76 percent reported restricted time spent with family. In effort to remedy the need for socialization which has been restricted by the pandemic, technology was used as a lifeline with varying success. Social psychologist, Richard Slatcher worked extensively on the topic of social connections through the global research project, “Love in the Time of COVID.” He found that technology alone may not be enough to connect people the same way in-person interactions do, but it has helped many people stave off depression linked to isolation. His research suggests that video chatting with friends and family predicts greater well-being, lower loneliness, greater happiness with life and lower rates of depression.
“I can’t put my entire personality into a text message.”
Such a positive experience was true for Emma at first —she was elated when familiar faces filled her screen after not seeing them in person for months. But the excitement wore off quickly after the call ended because she was painfully reminded of what she and her friends were missing out on. When students were sent home for extended school breaks, Emma moved back home with her parents on Long Island,. She missed her independence but most of all, she missed her friends.
Caitlin, Emma’s roommate and close friend, felt a similar void when reflecting on the time she spent in her central Connecticut home. She was completely isolated from her New York college friends.
“On FaceTime, it's not the same as sleeping five feet from each other. If you can't sleep, you can’t roll over and ask if they’re still up,” said Caitlin. “We would talk for hours and eventually somehow fall back asleep. It’s just a different dynamic.”
Still, the two made the best of the situation and would spend their days in isolation watching shows like “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” by pressing play simultaneously through FaceTime. Emma often vented about her relationship with Sean to Caitlin, rattling off the list of all of the things that he did—big and small—that got under her skin. Even though Caitlin and Emma were no longer living a dresser and a mini fridge length away from each other, they never lost touch.
When Caitlin returned to New York for the fall semester at SUNY New Paltz, she was welcomed to the common area in her suite bustling with life and piles of clothes. She was never so glad to see such a mess. It meant her friends were back. Certain COVID protocols prevented their parents from helping them move back in, which made Caitlin curious about who the woman standing in her doorway was. After spending so many months apart, she almost didn’t recognize her own roommate.
“Emma has overcome a lot this year and I’m super proud of her for getting through it even with a global pandemic happening on top of all of it,” said Caitlin. “I could not have been more excited to see her—I probably could have cried. When we went to bed, I rolled over and saw her there and I was so relieved to know that we were getting back to something better than what it had been.”
Soon after Emma moved back to campus, she decided that it was time to sever her ties with Sean. Caitlin comforted her when she returned to the dorm, eyes spilling over with tears following the breakup. Later that fall, Emma sat down with Caitlin and told her that she identified as bisexual. Caitlin, who also identifies as bisexual, could not have been more excited for Emma. Relationship psychotherapist, Silva Neves, said that Emma’s experience was something she had in common with many others in this past year.
“We say that lockdown was negative but it was actually positive for a lot of people in a way that people felt more safe and secure in some ways from their home to show more of themselves, “ said Neves. “There’s also the sense of you know ‘I don't want to waste more time of my precious life to live a lie or to pretend.’ ”
Emma’s evolution, including her breakup with Sean and embracing her sexuality, led her to lean on friendships without much interest in dating during the pandemic. And she is not alone. According to social psychologist Richard Slatcher, who surveyed 5,000 people from 57 different countries, most people who were single during the pandemic have diverted their focus away from dating and instead have strengthened family bonds and friendships. Sebastian, a 21-year-old resident of Brewster, New York, leaned on friendships more heavily this past year and feels grateful for how technology has allowed him to stay in touch with them. The small group of people Sebastian considers his ‘bubble’ that he has seen in person have fostered stronger bonds than ever before. But overall, an exclusively online connection is not the same and perhaps not enough.
Sebastian described the one avenue he has for meeting someone romantically, Tinder, with all the passion he’d have of buying toilet paper on Amazon. “I absolutely despise having to create a relationship out of thin air from two people swiping on each other's faces,” he said. “When you are in person and you sit there and you have a conversation with each other, looking each other in the eyes, you understand them a lot better than just texting them. I can't put my entire personality into a text message. So I've shied away from any sort of love connection during this quarantine.”
Young adults pushed into adulthood too soon
Sebastian lives at home with his older brother and three family members who fall into the at-risk category for COVID-19. His father has smoked since he was 11 years old, which caused him to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), his father’s diagnosis puts him at an increased risk for severe illness if he were to contract COVID-19. Sebastian also lives with his mother, who is 60, and his grandmother, who is 93. The CDC also reported that risk factors seem to correlate with age, with those who are 85 and older to be most at risk. Since Sebastian works at a tile showroom in Bedford, New York, he was not only concerned with who he chose to socialize with in his free time, but it was an added stress that he could contract the virus from customers.
COVID may be accelerating the timeline for when children begin to tend to their parents' well-being after a lifetime of the reverse. Typically this transition happens much later in life, when emerging adults become adults and adults become elderly. But since the risk of hospitalization or even death due to the virus correlates with age, young people are faced with putting part of their mental well-being aside for the protection of their parents or grandparents’ physical well-being—their life. Such a constant reminder of looming death, according to relationship psychotherapist Silva Neves, is leading to an existential crisis among young adults and heightened anxiety regarding the safety of their loved ones. The act of moving back home and being physically responsible for parents or grandparents or just worrying about them from a distance, withholding from seeing them for their protection, also can impact the typical developmental cycle for this age group.
“Usually emerging adulthood is a time where they separate from their parents, start new relationships, new and exciting careers, and it's all about them,” said Neves. “Suddenly, now it's becoming a period of time where people are actively thinking about their parents, and they are wanting to listen to them and take care of them.”
Sebastian, 21, engaging in a few of his greatest in the last year which include kayaking and skiing. Hung on his wall in the photo of his room (top middle) is a quote printed onto silk that reads, “Love. An inspired form of giving, love breathes life into the heart and brings grace to the soul.”
According to Neves, such a change in the developmental cycle for young people could lead to a pattern of delayed separation between adults and their children in the years to come. The full extent of this shift in responsibilities is largely unknown. Still, Neves is optimistic about the identity exploration phase in life for young people since as seen in Emma’s case of evolution, the circumstances of the pandemic have allowed for identity exploration in new ways.
The road to healing
When Marlee, 24, first moved into her off-campus home in New Paltz, New York, she requested the smallest room because she knew how little time she would spend in it. She loved to be out and about, thriving off the energy of her friends and anyone she met along the way. But when COVID-19 hit, she found herself stuck in Albany, New York, nearly alone. She didn't miss dating especially, but she had difficulty coping with the absence of social gatherings.
“I definitely was drinking a lot. And I was drinking alone. I feel like it was kind of romanticized to drink by noon because ‘It doesn't matter in quarantine.’ But it's actually sad because I'm alone, and I'm blacked out on a Tuesday for no reason,” Marlee said.
Even when a deadly virus was killing millions, the liquor store doors stayed open. Nielsen, a global marketing research firm, reported that as of the week of March 21, 2020, there was a 54 percent increase in national alcohol sales compared to the same time in 2019, with a 262 percent increase in online sales. Such a major spike in alcohol consumption could worsen physical and mental health and increase risk taking behaviors and violence, according to the World Health Organization.
Marlee began to notice that she was only capable of being emotionally vulnerable when she was drinking. She knew she couldn’t sustain relationships without being able to express her feelings while sober. So, she began the journey to recovery. Marlee sought virtual professional help to find better ways to cope with these periods of isolation. She immersed herself in hobbies like experimenting with makeup and creating jewelry. She rekindled friendships and maintained existing, close friendships regardless of physical distance. The friendships that have endured the obstacles the pandemic has presented created a new sense of platonic intimacy between her and her friends.
“All of this has made us have to look at ourselves and who's important to us and who we want to keep around us,” Marlee said. “At this point I feel completely different than I did at the beginning of all this. Obviously COVID is horrible, but personally I think that who I am now is a million times better— at least emotionally.”
Although isolation proved to be a major challenge for Marlee, she ultimately used the last year as a period of exploration resulting in emotional growth.
Micah, 23, experienced similar growth while working at a hospital during the pandemic. She would arrive at New York-Presbyterian Hospital as early as 7 a.m., draped in a medical gown, two, sometimes three pairs of gloves and a face shield with an N95 mask for extra protection. But Micah was not a medical professional. She was a college student working part time as a medical records clerk, hoping to chip away at her $200,000 in college debt.
“It was mentally draining,” Micah sighed. “I watched people come in who were barely able to say their names. I saw people I would probably never see again. They might not have even lived after they left that tent.”
During her nine months working at the hospital, Micah was face-to-face with what most people only saw from a screen in their homes. She experienced a period of growth that was not shared with her boyfriend of two years, Steven, 24, who lost his job as a mover leading up to the pandemic. The personal development that freed Marlee resulted in a strain on Micah and Steven’s relationship, changing their dynamic and pulling them further apart. But they couldn’t stray too far from each other since Micah lived with Steven in his dad’s home in Brewster, New York.
“It was a decent sized room but we were right next to each other 24/7,” said Steven. “There was no space for ‘me time’ for either of us.”
Micah would often return from a shift at the hospital, burnt out and emotionally drained, to find Steven in the same spot she left him. Steven expressed difficulty with filling his idle time while he was out of work and said video games served as a coping mechanism.
Micah experienced personal growth when she endured the pandemic on the front lines, which was very different from Steven’s experience. Relationship counsellor, Silva Neves, said that the source of her growth and for many essential or frontline workers at this time, is trauma.
“Sometimes being traumatized is really the opportunity for us to grow because we have a drastically different way of seeing life,” said Neves. “And when you see somebody who's not changing and doing nothing to do all day long, they're actually not growing, but they're also regressing. So then the gap gets so much bigger.”
The turning point came when Steven found a new job, which relieved the financial strain that had been a source of the stress for the couple. Micah and Steven also restored the space to establish themselves outside of the relationship once they were both working. Renewing the foundation of their relationship became important when Micah was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in November of 2020. Her diagnosis came as a shock since her visit with the neurologist a month prior was to get different migraine medication. The doctor explained that there was a white spot on her brain and they would have to do a spinal tap. She was terrified. To make matters worse, Micah was alone. Her parents were not allowed into the doctor's office due to COVID protocol. Eventually she went to New York City to receive another MRI and was diagnosed with MS over a Zoom call.
“My whole perspective of life changed because if they didn't diagnose it, I could potentially have started losing mobility. I could have lost my ability to walk and talk,” Micah said.
According to the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America, a person with MS has a malfunctioning immune system and is an autoimmune disease that could have caused more severe symptoms of COVID-19 for Micah. Fortunately, when she did contract COVID-19 in February, she had relatively mild symptoms.
But when the couple found out that Micah had MS, they faced it together and made adjustments to their lifestyle, including practicing an abundance of precaution in terms of COVID and even exploring the possibility of having children earlier due to her diagnosis. Steven was no longer unemployed, which allowed both partners to experience self-expansion and gain self-confidence, resulting in higher relationship satisfaction.
Tabitha Holmes, associate professor and director of the graduate program in psychological science at SUNY New Paltz, described what this experience could mean in general when considered in the context of typical development in emerging adults.
“As a psychologist I fall into the pattern of focusing on the risk factors more than the protective and positive factors. In terms of identity exploration so many people have tried different hobbies and found passions that they didn't know that they had.” said Holmes. “We lived in such a chaotic world. For some people it was an absolute gift, being able to have that kind of quiet and time to figure out what you care about to figure out who you are.”
What happens next?
The pandemic has infiltrated every aspect of our lives to varying degrees. We dream of normal times with our hearts racing at the smallest taste of life before COVID. The truth is, it might be a while until normalcy is restored. And even when words like ‘quarantine’ and ‘vaccine’ are part of the past, there is no way of predicting the residual damage of the pandemic. What comes next once resocialization is in full force is unknown. But the story of how young people love during the pandemic remains a story of resilience. This time of isolation has proved the importance of strong social connection as an integral part of a healthy life. Although technology has helped connect people near and far, nothing will compare to when we can embrace loved ones bare faced with open arms once again.
Social psychologist Richard Slatcher, is unsure of how the close bonds outside of romantic relationships will fare once the bustle of our everyday lives is fully restored. He believes that slow vaccine rollout might help to guide young people into the dating scene once again. There might be some anxiety at first as we begin to expand who we socialize with but he is optimistic. The best advice he can offer? Get vaccinated. The sooner this happens, he said, the sooner young people can get back to dating and socializing freely.
Psychology professor Karla Vermeulen says some emerging adults in her survey indicated they feel “cheated,” missing out on college experiences they would have otherwise had and trying to enter a job market that doesn’t look anything like the one they’d expected.
“For emerging adults, you're just on the cusp of really coming into your own” she said. “And then not be able to pursue all those typical developmental milestones, including the fun stuff, it’s understandably really frustrating.”
Her advice for young people feeling like they’ve missed out on their best years is to have patience. It may seem like the end of the world when you find yourself in the middle of a disaster, but society eventually finds a way to heal and to stabilize.
“I think this will make [young people] stronger—make them appreciate certain parts of life more. I mean, what's it gonna be like to be in a restaurant again or a bar again or going to a movie theater again or just being with family again?” said Vermeulen. “I really hope this will give us some appreciation of what we took for granted before.”
Relationship counselor Silva Neves is hopeful for how young people will pave the way for generations to come. Perhaps more of them will find themselves in the commitment phase of exploration, possibly more confident in their identity. Maybe some will continue to expand their search for love by using more online dating platforms while others rush back to the old-fashioned way of dating. But for certain, people of all ages are going to need time to grieve for who and what was lost during the pandemic. And what comes next will be up to us.
“Nobody talks about going back to normal now because I don't think there's any going back,” said Neves. “But the new world will also have different opportunities and the young people now will be the first generation to pave the way for how to navigate this new world.”