If you’d have told me a year ago that I’d be spending a significant amount of the next year on FaceTime, I’d probably have scoffed in disdain. No way, I would respond, and take a sip of my tea to comfort myself at such a horrifying prospect.

FaceTiming has always been (and will always be) an object of terror to me. Seeing my face lurking in a tiny rectangle is enough to plunge me into an absolute crisis of confidence: OMG, look at that spot, you’ll often hear me exclaiming – two octaves higher than my normal tone. My hair is sOoooO frizzy today is another favourite of mine. Even if I don’t utter such comments, I can guarantee that I am saying them internally. In supervisions, you’ll find me juggling half-developed thoughts about economic exchange systems with fully-developed concerns about my hairstyle, while trying desperately to only verbalise the former.

Largely against my will, then, this pandemic has forced me to give FaceTime a go. The blissful days of being able to ignore its existence completely are buried in the past. So now that I have hundreds of FaceTime hours to my name, I have a few thoughts that I’m sincerely hoping you will be able to relate to.

Lesson 1

Whenever you and your friend agree that you will ‘only call for five minutes’ because you both have ‘SO much work to do’ and you’re ‘literally in the middle of an essay crisis’, know (in the kindest way possible), that you are lying to yourself. If you are in the middle of an essay crisis, then there is nothing better than finding comfort and solidarity in someone else who, like you, is also throwing their degree away in exchange for gossip and procrastination. FaceTime understands and accepts that your destiny is an impressively inadequate essay. And the truly beautiful thing is that it will always be there to support you through your various stages of denial.

Lesson 2

“I haven’t broadened my horizons to ‘hiya’ yet, but who knows what will become of this principle by the end of this perpetual lockdown”

No matter how close you are with your friend, ALWAYS expect a deeply awkward ‘hello, how are you? etc’ sequence. In my humble experience, FaceTime has a remarkable ability to make the first minute of calls utterly cringe-worthy. I haven’t found a way around this yet, *but* I try to vary my first words from ‘hello’ to ‘hi’ to ‘hey’ to ‘(insert person’s name) ever so enthusiastically!!!’ just to shake things up a little bit. I haven’t broadened my horizons to ‘hiya’ yet, but who knows what will become of this principle by the end of this perpetual lockdown.

Lesson 3

Don’t give up on the call just because the first minute is enough to launch you into questioning the meaning of life. After minute one, I’ve found that things tend to start looking up. Once it is established that no, no-one has anything to say and no, there’s nothing to add, then the conversation really gets going. Because, if there is absolutely nothing to talk about, then suddenly a whole world of conversation opens up.

Lesson 4

If your WiFi is anything like mine, then you will have to resign yourself to the fact that it will inevitably crash at the most crucial moment in conversation. It always happens that just as I am about to find out whatever happened to that boy whose name I can’t remember who I sat next to in GCSE Biology – the call cuts out. Queue the awkward call back and the ‘hahaha my WiFi is awful… what’s that?... I knowww it always crashes… lol, yeah aha’ (while internally crying) response. The moment is lost, but the show must go on.

Lesson 5

Finally: is it just me, or is it impossible to say goodbye concisely on a call? Whenever my friend or I say ‘I need to go’, it always takes a good ten minutes before the call actually ends. I’ve had calls before whereby for two out of the three hours, we acknowledge the fact that we ‘should go’ but then proceed to stay. A remarkable amount of conversation can be concocted out of saying goodbye numerous times. So whenever the calls actually do end, I’ve probably said ‘bye’, ‘farewell’, ‘tally-ho’, ‘love you’ and/or ‘miss you’ about twenty times each.

“A remarkable amount of conversation can be concocted out of saying goodbye numerous times”

Aaand, that’s about it. This is as comprehensive as my lessons from FaceTime get. Using the word ‘lessons’ is ambitious, because as is probably clear, I haven’t really learnt a thing. But, if you have been through and/or are going through similar ordeals – know that you are not alone, and that thousands share your plight.