For the second day in a row, we hadn’t left the house. The five of us— roommates in our shared apartment in San Francisco—took our claimed spots in the living room and queued up the next episode of Love Island (U.K.).
You’re probably thinking: So what? Day two of staying-at-home was months ago.
But our decision to stay home for a few days and binge reality TV was made way before the coronavirus-induced quarantine—those halcyon days when I could have left the house at will to do anything I wanted within six feet of another human (gasp!)
Sign up for The Bold Italic newsletter to get the best of the Bay Area in your inbox every week.
This took place back in September, a few months before the novel parasite would turn our world inside out. My roommates and I consciously decided to stay home for a full weekend (which then seemed like an eternity) to watch TV despite having the freedom to leave. In the world we used to live in, sometimes, you just needed to hit “pause” and relax while the frenetic buzz marched on without you.
That’s what we were doing: simply relaxing and staying at home. And watching reality TV.
To the uninitiated, Love Island is like Big Brother mixed with The Bachelor, and since this season took place in the U.K., you can stir some Office humor into the mix. The unscripted reality show puts a group of 18- to 30-year-olds in one house, then slowly eliminates those who aren’t able to form a romantic relationship. The contestants are trapped at home, with nothing to do but act silly, cause drama, and spread gossip.
Oh, how the coronavirus oracle must have been laughing then.
In theory, their chief incentive is to win the competition by ending up in the relationship deemed strongest. But in reality, most just want to create enough controversy to amass a large Instagram following.
I’ve recalled that week of binge-watching TV at home a lot recently. Of course, none of us could have known at the time what was to come. But the irony of the fact that we chose to stay home to watch a show about people trapped in a house, when the months ahead would bring the same for us, is almost too much.
Oh, how the coronavirus oracle must have been laughing then.
Now, with my shelter-in-place glasses on, I feel a sudden commiseration with the contestants on the show. I understand why they were so excited whenever a new contestant was introduced into the house. I share in their sudden joy at being told they could leave the complex for a date, a rare occasion. I recognize their desire, however nefarious, to stoke controversy for the sake of entertainment.
We simply needed a break from the always-on lifestyle we had each cultivated for ourselves.
What motivated us to watch the show? Why did we forgo our freedom to leave, to sit in a park with friends, to be in a restaurant, to do anything other than stay at home?
Perhaps our kindred spirits guided us to the show out of some subconscious understanding that we would all follow.
Perhaps we really enjoyed watching others argue, in a moment of schadenfreude — escapism art at its finest.
Most likely, though, is that we simply needed a break from the always-on lifestyle we had each cultivated for ourselves. Our shared home was the center of our lives, but we spent more time away from it than in it. We could count the number of times we had all been home and awake on one hand. Most nights found us scattered around the city, beckoned by the unfailing tug of something new, something wondrous to be experienced. That is the daily battle of living in a city, and we had chosen to take that to an extreme.
To be busy was a sign of strength, not weakness.
After all, that never-ending energy is what drew so many of us to San Francisco in the first place. We chose to be busy; we chose this life because we found that by pushing to the limit, we could learn even more about ourselves. In those moments at the edge, our true nature would be revealed.
But there was never any time to be still. There was always the promise of a new adventure, and that evolved into our siren song. The hyperactivity became a shield to avoid taking a pause to soak it all in and engage with some of life’s important conversations. Without time to reflect, events blurred by, and we reduced ourselves to observers in our own story.
Sometimes, it turns out, we just need to be still.
Most of us rarely did that before, but now it’s our constant state.
On Love Island, contestants are forced to grapple with themselves and their relationships without external distractions. We’re in a moment now when we’re all forced to do the same.
