Non-medical friend avoiding me

[Smsanch2]

Hi, just wanted to post my thoughts on here where nurses like me could read and perhaps share advice.
I don’t really have a lot of close friends by choice. My family has moved around a lot lately, and making friends has become secondary to enriching my family’s quality of life. So when I do make friends, they’re usually of good quality. I made a new mom friend recently. Our kids have play dates often. She has no background in the medical field, but she’s not dumb. I feel as though she’s been highly avoiding me since the coronavirus outbreak - somewhat panicked by it - because I work at a hospital. I’m disappointed by this. Neither of us have reached out to each other. We live in the same neighborhood. Feeling hopeless because times like these are when medical professionals need the most support one way or another. Thanks in advance.

[Kitiger, RN]

10 hours ago, amoLucia said:

I know of this happening to HC folk when AIDS/HIV began to seriously emerge early 1980s.

Yeah, when HIV/AIDs came out, I had family members who didn't feel that I was taking it seriously enough. They thought actually touching a person infested with AIDs would likely result in me being infected!

When asked, I explained it to them, but they didn't believe me.

[Closed Account 12345]

I think right now we all need to show each other a lot of grace because everyone is walking through unknown territory. She may be avoiding you out of concern that you'll pressure her to get together for a playdate since you kind of downplayed her concerns last time.

Factually, you are at a high risk for COVID-19 exposure as a hospital employee. We're being told to practice social distancing to a pretty extreme degree, and this is being reinforced by mandatory closures of restaurants, stores, schools, and churches. We all have differing ideas on how seriously social distancing should be taken, and we need to respect people who choose more conservative approaches - and who understandably want to avoid exposure with high risk contacts. I've read that play dates and social outings are discouraged because they defeat the purpose of closing public places. People are still germ sharing. Makes sense...

But as someone else mentioned, if this is a friendship that you're both interested in maintaining, take advantage of technology! Shoot your friend a message. "Hey, I haven't seen you for a couple of weeks, so I wanted to check in and see how you're doing. How've you been in the midst of this chaos? Life here has been busy between work and home! Insert funny kid story here. Hope all is well!"