Maintaining a sense of connectedness can be difficult with a pandemic in the equation. With the mandates of social distancing — restricted gatherings, cancelled travel plans — we’re facing an unprecedented lack of physical contact with our loved ones, especially when they live far away from us. Understandably, it would be difficult to cope under such unpredictable circumstances. If you find yourself in this situation, here are a few ways you can stay connected with your significant other, best friends, or your parents — even if you can’t see them in person.
How to stay connected with your partner:
1. Synchronised cooking-dinner date
Try to spice things up by asking your far-flung flame to do some synchronised cooking. First, go on a grocery shopping to purchase the same set of ingredients, or create a recipe with what both of you already have at home.
Have both your laptops or smartphones perched on the kitchen counter and get cooking! Then, it’s time for bon appétit! It’ll be like having a romantic dinner that you cooked together — but the long-distance version.
2. Get your sweat on
You know what they say: couples who workout together stay together. While physical presence might seem impossible at this juncture, we’re all for the next best thing — motivating each other through virtual presence!
Remember the good old days of home workout videos? They’re coming in handy again. For at least twice a week, pick a routine on YouTube and set up a video call with your partner to get your body rolling simultaneously in the comfort of both your own homes.
Read More: 20-Minute Equipment-Free Workouts You Can Do At Home
How to stay connected with your friends:
1. Throw a Netflix party
You may not be able to head to the movie theatres with friends for now, but fret not! Try out the game-changing Netflix Party extension on Google Chrome to stream movies with your friends. And of course, no viewing party is complete without actually talking about or reacting to whatever you’re watching — and you can do just that with the chatroom function.
Read More: Our Staff recommends 10 binge-worthy Netflix series according to your Netflix personalities
2. Game night is not dead
Staring back at your friends in a video call may get stale after a while. It’s time to be creative and get your hands on the new favourite mobile multiplayer game across the world: Psych! This game doesn’t require any special skills or talent (i.e. drawing), Get a group of 2 to 10 friends huddled “together” to play!
How the game works: Choose from a number of categories, make up an answer to a question, and hope that your friends believe your answer is the real one. The more friends you convince, the more points you get.
To kick things up a notch, go on Google Hangouts with your friends while at it and call out those with a terrible poker face!
How to stay connected with your parents:
1. Have real conversations
It can be challenging for the elderly to be cooped up inside the house with nowhere to go. So it’s especially important to connect with them, especially if they have some fears in this season of social distancing. If your parents live elsewhere and are able to operate a smartphone (or even a landline telephone), do give them a call to check in as often as possible.
Help them keep things in perspective — reduce any areas of uncertainty by familiarising yourself with coronavirus-related developments, so you can explain all relevant details. Also, don’t forget to focus on the good and nice things happening in your daily life to give them a sense of positivity and normalcy!
2. You’ve got mail!
Care packages are one of the sweetest things to receive in a long-distance relationship. It will bridge the distance and show them how much you care, even from afar. For practicality, you can help them to order groceries online and have it delivered to their doorstep so that they wouldn’t have to make the trip out of the house unnecessarily. Give them a heads up with a call or make it more meaningful by running through the shopping list together, that’s extra bonding time right there!
At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that we’re all dealing with a stressful situation. But with this situation comes a unique opportunity for you to discover the true meaning of connection in a world full of digital channels through which you can approximate intimacy with your loved ones!
Staying at home doesn’t have to be a bore when you’ve got cool tips and tricks to stay productive, connected, and positive. Lockdown or not, we’ve got you covered with our Stay Home Guide — tap to read more!
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