Fun Ways To Connect With Friends During Social Distancing
Netflix Parties And Other Fun Ways To Connect With Your Friends During Social Distancing This Weekend
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I’m officially going stir crazy. It’s just me and my boyfriend and our dog quarantining together, and I’ll admit I’ve been getting a bit testy with my guy. I asked him to pull two chicken breasts from the pack, put those in the fridge, and freeze the rest. Instead, he froze everything, and it’s all stuck together now. And I threw a small tantrum worthy of an Academy Award. I guess I overreacted a little bit. But these are trying times. There isn’t much to look forward to…I really wanted to make that chicken today! I bought everything for chicken Alfredo! I think he ignores my instructions on purpose. Oh wow, here I go again.
When everything is going wrong in the world it seems that one little thing can really set me off. Is that the same for you? We are so used to having all of these goals and ambitions and plans. Plans are what keep us going. Having things in the future that we can count on happening is what keeps us happy. Though we’re all learning the true meaning of the phrase, “We make plans and God just laughs” right now. I was—naively and hopefully—shopping both for quarantine supplies and house party supplies last week. It didn’t really click for me that if I was shopping for quarantine supplies there’d be no house party. That was cancelled. I had tickets to a comedy show. Cancelled. Out of town friends were supposed to visit. Cancelled.
We need every way possible to keep morale up right now, and not being able to physically spend time with friends is a major problem. But, we can still interact with friends and rely on the sanity-saving process of making plans to stay hopeful right now. Here are fun ways to connect with friends while social distancing.
Source: UMC / UMC TV
Watch Laughs on Lockdown
Tonight, streaming service UMC is hosting Laughs on Lockdown on Instagram Live to help you get your mind off of things. Comedians Aida Rodriguez (Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready) and Gary “G Thang” Johnson (Master P’s I Got The Hook Up 2) will each have a one-hour set starting at 7pm EST/4pm PST this Friday, March 27th. Tune in on UMC’s Instagram page, @WatchUMC.
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Do a video clothing swap
I love doing clothing swaps with friends. I’ll have a friend come over with all the clothes she no longer wants. I’ll prepare mine. And we’ll go through every item, chatting about them, trying them on, talking about when we wore them, and swapping. Just do a virtual swap with a friend right now! Get on FaceTime or Skype, and go through your closets together, but apart. You can set aside the clothes your friend wants for when you can finally see her again.
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Or, “Shop” together
Share your screens and online shop together. If you typically love to go window-shopping in real life, this is a fun alternative. You can go to the same websites, and peruse the same items. You know how you and your friend get when you shop. You’ll start talking about all the things you’d wear that dress for or how those types of jeans make your butt look funny. It’s almost like you’re at the mall together. Almost.
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Make a meal together
Pick a recipe that you’ll make together. Set up your laptops with a full screen video chatting application, and cook together! Go through each step together. Have a glass of wine while you’re at it. Experience the struggles of julienning a carrot or flambéing a banana, together. Then sit back and enjoy your meal, together.
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Enjoy a FaceTime spa night
You can send your friend a favorite mask and other spa goodies, or make your own masks—adding another activity to the virtual hang. Light some candles. Get in your robes. Do mani-pedis, all the while with your screens open, looking at each other and chatting. It’s almost like having a spa night at one of your homes in real life.
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Netflix Party
Netflix Party lets you have a movie night with friends. It synchronizes your playback, so you experience everything at the same time. And it adds a group chat element, so you can talk to your friends and tell them everything that comes to mind during the movie—and they can tell you to stop talking. Just like in real life!
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Have a virtual book club
Choose a book to read together with friends and have a virtual book club on a set day at a set time each week. It’s good for our mental health right now to have projects and appointments. It keeps us from totally spiraling out of control and just sleeping and eating ice cream all day. Promise to read X amount of chapters each week before you chat and then hold your book club via a video app.
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Create playlists together
Collaborate on playlists together. Spotify is a great place to do this. You can have a workout playlist you’re building. A dance-by-yourself playlist. A chill out playlist. Finding new songs your friend has added, all because she enjoys them and wants you to experience the same thing, helps you feel connected. Music has always been able to bond us like that. It’s the new way of making a mixtape for a friend.
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Watch2Gether
If you don’t have Netflix, or you just want a way to watch other online content together, use Watch2Gether. It allows you to create a “room” where you can invite friends to sync up your screens and find videos on YouTube and other popular sites to watch together. And you know how getting into a funny YouTube video sharing session can go on and on, in a good way.
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Bet on your fitness
Whether you want to lose weight through diet, jogging, or walking, and love some friendly competition, look into DietBet, RunBet, or StepBet. Through these apps, you’ll join friends and put down real money that the app will collect and hold in a pot until the competition is done. The winners (those who lost the most weight/jogged the most/walked the most) split the pot at the end.
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Virtual Happy Hours
Have a virtual happy hour with some friends. Did you know that the new FaceTime lets you have up to 32 faces on a screen at once? The face of the person currently speaking becomes enlarged, and then minimizes when someone else speaks up. So have a “party” on FaceTime with cocktails and snacks.
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Send an online gift card
Get creative with your gift cards. Send your friend a pizza delivery gift card with the note, “I’m taking you to dinner,” and video chat while you both eat pizza from the same place. Or, get her an Amazon gift card, ask her to use it to rent the same movie you’re about to watch, and share your screens. It’s like you’re taking your friend to the movies.
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Source: Adriana Duduleanu / EyeEm / Getty
Periscope a puppy play date
If you both have doggies you can have a virtual puppy playdate! Live stream all the cute things your pups are doing over an app like Periscope. You could even order your dogs the same toys online, and when they arrive, watch your dogs play with them, together.
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GoPro live stream your jogs
Live stream your hikes, jogs, and other outdoor adventures on GoPro. Let your friend see what you’re seeing—the gorgeous view, the river, the wildlife, the plants. And you can see how things look where she is. It’s almost like going on a hike together.
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Make “plans”
Maybe don’t set an exact date, since we don’t yet know when this whole thing will blow over (recent reports suggest months), but you can make hypothetical plans. Share a Google spreadsheet where you drop ideas of adventures you’d like to take together when this is done. You can post links to websites for places you’d like to visit or things you’d like to do.
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Game together
Maybe you weren’t a gamer before, but now is a good time to get into it. You can chat with your friends, see their screens, and get into the competitive spirit. You can even place friendly bets, where losers have to send the winners gift cards and things like that.
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