Bix dot Blog

But now, everyone’s really an NPC. We’re outright forbidden to get close to people we don’t know, and strangely this seems to have made everybody much kinder. Perhaps there’s a relief in knowing nothing more is expected of us, except to be polite and maintain our 3 feet of distance and smile demurely with our half-covered faces. (I’m assuming, of course, that everyone’s as curmudgeonly as I am.) There is no possible timeline where we progress beyond pleasantries anymore, and this feels nice for a change.

—Nadia Eghbal, in “Out of Body”