Storytelling During COVID-19: How Personal Anecdotes Have Changed and Change Us

My project has to do with storytelling, so it seems only fair I start with a story of my own. Over the summer, my best friend was dumped over text. They were obviously devastated, and it was my job to listen and do my best to lift their spirits. We had been talking to each other daily over text, social media, and the occasional zoom call, but these methods of communication were a poor substitute for our usual in-person talks. So that afternoon we both put on our masks and rode our bikes to the public park between our houses, and I sat in the grass and listened to a dramatic reading of the breakup text they received shouted halfway across a field. I thought about this moment a lot when working on this text. This story was so important for them to tell that we completely changed our already altered methods of communication. Were we not in a pandemic, it would’ve been told on a car ride to the ice cream shop, but the threat of COVID-19 radically shifted the way in which they communicated with me about their life. Why was it important for them to tell me in person, but ok to summarize in a text to others? How did our relationship and physical location affect that decision?  This is the story that inspired my research.