Will Zooming replace real-life socialising?

‘Are you seriously telling me you would rather meet up on Zoom than in reality?’ I asked a friend as we got stuck into an argument about the future of our existence.

‘Well, it’s all we’ve got,’ he argued. No, it really isn’t. But how to explain to people who refuse to stop being locked down that lockdown is, to all intents and purposes, over?

I get the distinct impression that a lot of people have so thoroughly enjoyed sitting on their backsides doing nothing — sorry, I mean finding themselves and getting in touch with their inner child and being close to nature — that they don’t want it to end, ever.

I have one girlfriend who has built so many ‘bug hotels’ in her garden it’s like the Las Vegas strip for insects, although I shouldn’t cast aspersions because I did construct a toad plunge pool in my garden a few weeks in. But I like to think I then got a grip and realised lockdown was hateful.

A lot of people seem hell-bent on isolating until we find a cure for death

She, on the other hand, bought into the idea that what we are up to in our leisure-filled days of working from home (using the term work in the post-lockdown sense which is to say not working much at all) is as good and as worthwhile as if we were contributing properly to the economy. This is clearly nonsense and will be proved so when the economy collapses in a few months’ time, unless everyone goes back to work. Will the bugs be happy when her house is repossessed? I suppose they will.