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For the first time since the Circuit Breaker period, the cap on social gatherings has been upped to 10.

For some, this is a good opportunity to finally reconnect with old friends or acquaintances they might not have caught up with since the pandemic began, especially if they would typically only get together in bigger groups.

No doubt, it also means a reduction in social anxiety for those who have often found themselves fretting about who they should (or shouldn't) invite to an outing, to keep within the previous limits.

In my case, however, I don't myself find particularly inclined to make an effort to try and rekindle friendships that have dropped off during the pandemic.

Rather, I have found myself quite contented to just stick with the handful of friends with whom I have maintained contact throughout this time.

Some friendships were slowly but surely becoming more distant pre-pandemic

In fact, what I've realised is that Covid-19 has pretty much exacerbated the slow but gradual drifts in friendships that were already taking place even before the pandemic.

This phenomenon of a gradual drift is quite normal: as CNN reported in 2016, a study by scientists from Aalto University in Finland and the University of Oxford in England found that people start to lose friends from the age of 25.

As one of the co-authors of the study, Kunal Bhattacharya from Aalto University was quoted as saying, "People become more focused on certain relationships and maintain those relationships. You have new family contacts developing, but your casual circle shrinks."

At least for me, I found that many of my chat groups, pre-pandemic, were already getting more and more silent, with most parties in the chat just seemingly becoming less and less interested over time.

Case in point: A chat group comprising some of my hostel friends — once full of debauched messages about hostel dramas and gossip — became progressively quieter once we graduated and found jobs, with the group eventually becoming silent.

Granted, all of us are now working adults, so it can pretty much be chalked up to everyone being busy.

But that's not to say the friendships were completely dead: There were still the occasional gatherings for meals and board games.

These relationships had a brief renewal during the CB period

Even so, during the initial months of Covid-19 in 2020, many of these "decaying" chats suddenly roared back to life, especially during the Circuit Breaker, when everyone was stuck at home.

For the first time, everyone was feeling something completely new and novel.

Suddenly, our gatherings were all virtual in the form of zoom calls and for a while, gaming became one of the few outlets to distract us from our worries.

I would even say that during this time, gaming was the only outlet through which I found myself reconnecting with people, by virtue of playing on the same team in Dota 2.

But this initial excitement wore off by June 2020, once the restrictions began slowly lifting in phases.

Choosing who to hang out with

It's worth remembering here that in Phase 1, no social gatherings were allowed, while group sizes were capped at five for Phase 2 and eight for Phase 3, before a fresh outbreak of cases in May 2021 brought about further tightening.

Looking back, this means that for the past two years, there has always been a cap on the number of people we can meet in public and that I would often need to make a choice as to who I would hang out with.

As for my gaming friends, I only met them once in person since the circuit breaker, at a wedding in early 2021.

You might be wondering, "Why did you not meet up more with the people you spent so much time gaming with?"

Here, I should highlight that many of us are at different stages in life, with some married, some not, and others still single. Playing Dota 2 happens to be a rare thing we have in common.

And let's be honest, as a working adult in my 30s, what I hope to get out of friendships, and my emotional needs, are no longer at the same levels they were when I was still in secondary school. I am pretty sure that my friends who are already married feel very much the same way too.

With in-person gatherings so greatly restricted in the past two years, I found myself prioritising the friends I felt the greatest affinity with.

These were not the same friends I game with, but I have nevertheless spent a lot of time interacting with them on a near-daily basis via WhatsApp and Telegram; friends whom I actively responded to, and who responded to me when I reached out to chat.

Essentially, the friendships I value most are the ones where I am most invested, and from which I derive the best returns.

My closest friends were (and still are) the people I knew I could contact whenever the feeling of isolation from the pandemic started to weigh down on me.

In addition, as a result of only meeting with the "highest quality" friends, it became clear that some of my other relationships were no longer worth as much in investing my time.

Diverging adulting challenges during the pandemic can dictate who you want to interact with

This brings me to my next point about interacting less and less with other friends, especially those who are married and even have children.

Much of this issue lies in diverging adulting challenges during Covid-19.

For a married couple, the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic might not necessarily be isolation but the pressures of living within the same space for an extended period of time.

These challenges can also be exacerbated by the presence of young children and their need for attention.

All of this means that you simply do not have the time or capacity to reply to a friend, especially if their circumstances are very different from yours.

Unsurprisingly, I found messages which I sent to such friends receiving far less attention and eventually I figured there was no point in sending them, or even remaining in the same chat groups.

Do I hold a grudge against these friends who have their own families? Of course not; it's just a fact and natural progression of life.

Perhaps this would have been a big deal to me, if it'd happened earlier in my life. I might even have gotten angry with them. But I've come to realise that it's natural that not all friendships are meant to last.

Now that I also face more responsibility in my work and personal lives, I find myself wanting to be more deliberate about how spend my precious time.

If such friends whom I have grown distant with message me out of the blue, for instance, to invite me out for a meal, I might decline because I now prioritise going for language classes over catching up.

I've also rejected a few acquaintances' wedding invitations because I just don't feel that inclined or interested to meet them anymore.

You could say that this is also an active choice on my part in choosing to lose those relationships.

Is it sad? Yes, because I do have some good memories with a number of these friends.

But ultimately, I am fine with that because I know I am more assured than ever with those friends who have helped me tide through the pandemic's isolation.

Perhaps the pandemic has just reinforced that we are only meant to have a handful of companions after all

Obviously, there is a clear difference in the quality of a relationship with friends whom you meet once in a while, and those with whom you interact with almost daily, even if the primary means of communication is text messages.

As The New York Times reported, research by evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar shows that human beings only have the cognitive capacity for between four to six close friends at most.

These are the relationships that require the greatest effort to maintain, with daily or weekly interactions, because they are the relationships holding the greatest emotional significance.

This group can include your romantic partner, maybe some family members, and close friends.

Beyond that are the friendships with whom you invest progressively less attention, and the lack of contact can mean that some friendships can eventually fall into the level of acquaintance, which probably explains why you don't necessarily find yourself wanting to divulge everything that has happened at a once-in-a-while "catch-up."

In fact, having realised that ultimately, there are only so many people with whom you are keen on sharing details of your life, from work annoyances to family troubles, I would make the case that the pandemic has reinforced how we are only meant to have a small number of friends after all.

The few friendships I have now are so much richer

But I'm definitely not complaining.

Now that the "low-quality" friendships are gone, I don't feel pressure to put on a front to show life is still good. I have more energy to cultivate the ones that count.

Now that I'm only meeting with my closest friends, I can definitely say our relationships have become so much richer and more in-depth, with less and less restraint in sharing worries and fears about our relationships and careers, as a result of spending more time together.

That's not to say that my arrangement is the best: I also know of friends who have forged significant new friendships during the pandemic.

Maybe ultimately, the only important thing to keep in mind when navigating friendships is to constantly maintain the closest ones.

Does this also mean I no longer wish to meet new people? Not really. It just means that I'm quite satisfied at the moment, and new friendships are not a priority.

But mostly, it just means if we used to be friends, it was fun while it lasted.

And if we do reconnect, it will be a lucky bonus.

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Top photo by Helena Lopes via Unsplash