r/Glasgow Tools

> If I was facing all this straight off the back of two year of isolating, depressing loneliness (which seems to be many if not most people's experience), I'm fairly certain I'd be an absolute fucking basket case by now.

You know, this has made me make a connection I hadn't made before. I think the pandemic coming after the referendum, the Tories just getting elected again and Brexit was also the worst possible time for it, because we had just had before it three huge events in which the public were split into two camps that had polar opposite opinions and experiences.

And then I think to an extent how people experienced lockdown and restrictions was another experience like that. Some people had a bit of inconvenience but also some benefits from it; while for other people it was absolute torture and really hard to deal with. But once again during the time it was at its hardest, it felt like the two 'sides' were talking past each other about their experiences and clashing instead of having dialogue and being able to help each other.

What I mean is, if we hadn't just had Brexit and those other things first and we didn't *start* the pandemic as an already visibly/loudly divided society, maybe it wouldnt've been just as hard. We went into it with people primed to oppose each other and maybe even raring to disagree and it feels like there's just been a general aggressiveness since the start of it and during and after. Everyone suddenly had to have an opinion on everything instead of ever trying to see someone else's point of view or sympathizing properly. (Not saying that your comment did that, it was v balanced & just made me think further)