It makes sense, really, when you consider that lockdown has been a life-altering event and created a physical barrier from spending time with our friends, cutting into our usual routines of Friday night drinks or a Sunday roast.

Indeed, these five months of isolation have sped up the process of cutting the wheat from the metaphorical friendship chaff, seeing some bonds crumble. It’s not just me feeling this change, either. To get an understanding of how lockdown is effecting our most precious female friendships, I’ve spoken to five women anonymously about how this time has made them feel differently about those they call friends.

“This time has exposed my obligatory friendships”

“I’ve been surprised by how easy it’s been to maintain a closeness to friends I adore but worried I wouldn’t hear from, and equally shocked by how difficult it’s been to feel connected to the ones I’ve never really questioned. But within that I’ve realised that there are a few (too many) friends who I’d fallen into a habit of seeing out of obligation, not because of a sincere desire to spend time with each other.

“It’s sad and almost a bit embarrassing that it’s taken something like the disaster of this year to realise that there are people I considered to be in my inner circle who I, actually, neither had anything to say to nor anything in common with. It’s a dynamic that is dramatically exposed when your last six months of WhatsApp conversation hasn’t gone beyond ‘Hey hun, hope you’re doing okay! You back at work yet? Fancy a drink? I’m sorry I’m busy. Don’t worry we’ll find a time….’ [five weeks later…] ‘Hey hun, hope you’re doing okay! You back at work yet…?’”

How the pandemic made us reevaluate some of our oldest, closest friendships