5 Oddly Weird 2021 Social Problems

5

Pet Separation Anxiety

When it started to look like we were gonna have to go all Cask of Amontillado on ourselves at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, pet adoptions soared by about 34%. It makes sense: Everyone was terrified of being alone with their own thoughts, and babies take nine months and at least a temporary sex partner, so why not buy yourself a living security blanket who will never have to experience middle school and do something noble for an unwanted animal at the same time? Shelters literally couldn’t keep dogs in stock. It worked, too: 93% of people surveyed said that their new cuddle monster was crucial to their mental health under lockdown. In fact, 80% of those people said they now preferred working from home.

MarlyneArt/Pixabay

“You are always my employee of the month.”

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That’s a problem, because pretty soon, those people are going to be forced to wear pants and leave the house sometimes again. It’s going to be a weird adjustment for everyone, but especially for people who have spent the year bonding with a new family member who is unjustly discriminated against in most non-hippie indoor spaces, and they don’t want to leave them for eight-plus hours a day. Again, it’s very much like new parents who have spent a year on leave making a squishy new addition the center of their world only to be thrust back into the rat race as they hand the love of their life off to some daycare worker who’s barely out of infancy themselves, except no one’s going to laugh at you for feeling distressed about being separated from your child. Fur parent separation anxiety isn’t quite so legitimized.

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Seriously, Google “pet separation anxiety.” No matter how you finesse those keywords, you’ll get almost exclusively advice on how to deal with a pet who is feeling anxious about being left at home, not your own mental health. Even Google is telling you that only a creature with the emotional intelligence of a dog would be sad about the interruption of the owner-pet relationship, and no one needs that kind of judgment from a search engine. Fortunately (or further embarrassingly, depending on your perspective), the advice that is out there is largely the same: Start small with just five-minute separations, no emotional goodbyes, keep a routine, find a dog walker or daycare you’re comfortable with, etc. You don’t have to descend completely into Angela Martin territory with constantly monitored cat nanny cams, but we, for one, will not judge you if you do.

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4

Vaccine FOMO

On April 19, 2021, all American adults became eligible for vaccination against COVID-19, but as anyone familiar with the phrase “eligible bachelor” knows, eligibility doesn’t always translate to results. Manufacturers are making like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory to keep up with the demand, appointment slots remain scarce in many cities, and it turns out not everyone is American. Even our neighbors to the north could only guarantee that everyone who wanted a shot would get one by the end of summer. While it’s fun to brag to our Canadian friends that the U.S. medical system actually did something better for once, bragging during a pandemic is kind of a dick move, as many think pieces had already argued.