在孤独的流行病期间，一些友谊会变得更牢固

Marie Fiebach (left) and Kelly Schoeppner (right) found their friendship got deeper over the course of the pandemic.

玛丽·菲巴赫(左)和凯利·肖普纳(右)发现，她们的友谊随着疫情的发展而加深。

For over a decade, Marie Fiebach and Kelly Schoeppner took weekly walks after dropping their kids off at school in Wichita, Kansas. The two women enjoyed the ritual, but each had four kids and busy lives, with family, work and plenty of other friends.

十多年来，玛丽·菲巴赫和凯利·肖普纳每周都会在送孩子到堪萨斯州威奇托市上学后散步。这两位女士很享受这样的仪式，但她们都有四个孩子，生活忙碌，有家庭、工作和许多其他朋友。

When the pandemic hit, that busyness receded, as did many friendships.

当流行病来袭时，这种忙碌消失了，许多友谊也消失了。

Fiebach, 45, had always spent a lot of time chitchatting with pals at the gym, but it closed. Schoeppner's husband was furloughed, and their oldest daughter lost her job and moved home. As the shapes of their lives changed — got harder, got stranger — their friendship strengthened. Fiebach and Schoeppner's once-weekly walk became a weekly phone call, and the tenor of it changed.

菲巴赫今年45岁，以前经常和朋友们在健身房闲聊，但健身房关门了。肖普纳的丈夫被迫休假，他们的大女儿也失业了，搬回家住。随着他们生活形态的改变——变得更加艰难，变得更加陌生——她们的友谊加深了。菲巴赫和肖普纳每周一次的散步变成了每周一次的电话交谈，谈话的基调也改变了。

"We had a lot of conversations that were a lot deeper," Schoeppner, 47, said. "It was just a relief to know that she was there whenever I needed her to be."

“我们进行了很多深入得多的对话，”47岁的肖普纳说。“当我需要她的时候，她总是在我身边，这让我松了一口气。”

"Kelly became my window to the world, and I became hers, even though our worlds were much, much smaller," Fiebach said.

菲巴赫说:“凯利成为了我通向世界的窗口，而我则成为了她的窗口，尽管我们的世界要小得多。”

Fewer but deeper friendships

更少但更深厚的友谊

Isolation is a common byproduct of Covid-19; adults are reporting significant declines in mental health since March.

隔离是Covid-19常见的副产品；据报道，自3月份以来，成年人的心理健康水平显著下降。

But some people have found that as their worlds shrank, they also recalibrated, and a few things were simpler, and sometimes even better. Many women, especially those with jobs, young kids and frenetic schedules, found they had fewer friendships, but deeper ones. They replaced quantity with quality.

但有些人发现，随着他们的世界缩小，他们也在重新调整，有些事情变得更简单，有时甚至更好。许多女性，尤其是那些有工作、有孩子、有疯狂的日程安排的女性，发现她们的友谊更少，但更深厚。她们以质量代替了数量。

"Loneliness is not usually from not knowing enough people," Shasta Nelson, an author and friendship expert, said. "It's from feeling known by a few people."

“孤独通常不是因为认识的人不够多，”作家兼友谊专家沙斯塔·纳尔逊说。“这是少数人的感受。”

The pandemic is affecting friendship in a number of ways. Real friendship, Nelson said, is based on three things. Consistency: how often and reliably friends interact. Vulnerability: feeling seen and safe. And positivity: feeling good about the interactions. The pandemic knocked out a certain kind of casual friendship, one based more on consistency — running into people at school or sports or the market — than vulnerability and positivity.

这一流行病在许多方面影响着友谊。纳尔逊说，真正的友谊建立在三件事上。一致性：朋友互动的频率和可靠性。脆弱性：感觉被看见和安全。积极性：对互动感觉良好。流行病摧毁了某种偶然的友谊，这种友谊更多的是建立在一致性的基础上——在学校、运动会或市场上遇到的人——而不是建立在脆弱性和积极性上。

Some friendships are fracturing

一些友谊破裂了

Some friendships are fracturing beneath the strain of our time, not bringing enough positivity to continue. "A lot of relationships right now are struggling with how people are responding to the pandemic differently," Nelson said. "They feel judged, or they feel guilty, or they feel judgmental of the other person for not wearing masks or putting their kids in certain situations."

有些友谊在我们时代的压力下破裂了，没有带来足够的积极性使之继续下去。” 纳尔逊说：“现在很多关系都在为人们对流行病的不同反应而挣扎。”他们感到被人评判，或感到内疚，或因为对方没有戴口罩或把孩子置于某些情况下而对他们进行评判。“

Suddenly it wasn't weird to reach out to someone you missed and tell them you wanted to connect.

突然间，联系上你想念的人并告诉他们你想联系他们并不奇怪。