Real life: ‘All my friends don't care about the corona measures’

Sophia (26) lives in Amsterdam with two housemates. Since March, all three of them have been working from home. Even though they live quite spaciously, it's still not ideal. Especially not now that her housemates have made very wild plans for Christmas. Sophia's parents live abroad, so unfortunately, she can't go there for the holidays.

‘Maybe it's in me that I've always been a bit of a good girl. I don't mind it myself, but I notice that my housemates are starting to find it annoying. While for me, it just makes sense; how they act seems strange to me.

Since March, I have always adhered to all the measures. Maybe it's easier because my parents live abroad, I couldn't visit them anyway. Furthermore, I just work from home, but I have seen very few friends in real life. Of course, I made a walking appointment here and there, but always at a distance.

My housemates, on the other hand, have actually not adhered to the measures at all. They continuously had house parties everywhere and nowhere, even outside in the summer. At first, they would sometimes invite me, but after I politely declined each time, they stopped asking.

I found that quite annoying and stupid of them, but I also didn't feel like I could say too much about it. After all, they weren't throwing parties in our house, but my own self-quarantine felt a bit pointless at times: if they were having drinks with thirty people on a Friday night with zero distance and we were then sitting together in the same house, what was the point?

Still, I stayed home, also because I hoped that I could visit my parents as soon as possible. They hardly go outside anymore because my father is in the risk group. If he gets the virus, the chance is very high that it will end badly for him. Because things have only been getting worse in the Netherlands lately, they didn't dare to let me come over. Before that, things were really bad for them: it just wasn't possible.

Of course, I think my housemates should do what they feel good about, but now they want to have a big dinner at our place for Christmas. With fifteen people. I am completely against that, but since the father of one of my housemates is the owner of our house, she thinks she gets to make the final decision. I totally disagree with that: I also just pay my rent, right?

I really don't want to, I've been adhering to all the measures all this time and they don't care about anything. I've tolerated that so far, but this really goes too far for me. Unfortunately, they see it very differently, they think I'm a boring person who ruins everything for them. Looking for another house and moving during this time is really not an option for me, and it's almost Christmas already. I have nowhere else to go, but for now, I plan to just sit in my room all evening with Netflix.’

In this unusual time, we asked people for their honest story. To avoid hurting others, Sophia's name has been changed.