Aliza Prodaniuk, left, and Charmaine Holland check emails related to the Caring and Connecting Initiative, at Prodaniuk's home in Dundas, Ont., on Dec. 20, 2020.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Rob Donato’s phone has been ringing at random times throughout the day since June. When he answers, a total stranger is on the line waiting to talk.
“You get people from all walks of life,” says Mr. Donato, a 46-year-old lawyer who recently moved to Fredericton from Montreal.
So far, he’s had about 150 of these conversations. Usually, it’s Americans on the phone. But he’s talked to people in England. People in Italy. In Portugal. Someone in Malaysia. Someone in Nigeria. Three women in Chicago who wanted to give him a tarot reading. A woman in North Carolina who lives on food stamps. Someone in Washington who works for the Democratic party.
Sometimes these conversations last just a few minutes. One of them went on for four hours.
The calls come thanks to Quarantine Chat, an app launched this past spring that connects strangers from around the world who are looking for that sense of connection, or even just the pleasure of small talk, that the COVID-19 pandemic has otherwise taken from so many of us.
“It’s really a kind of godsend if you are unwillingly isolated,” Mr. Donato says.
More than 24,000 people in 90 countries have used the service, says Danielle Baskin, a San Francisco–based artist and one of Quarantine Chat’s co-creators.
The loneliness of isolation has understandably made many people want to find a sense of connection. But not everyone who has reached out to total strangers has done so because they feel lonely. The pandemic has given everyone in the world something in common.
And that has made many people curious about others, and empathetic, in a way they might not have been before. And having the pandemic in common, as terrible as it is, makes it possible to open up a conversation with just about anyone, whoever and wherever they may be.
“A lot of people don’t know how to break the ice to talk to strangers,” Ms. Baskin says. “With everyone going through very similar things, regardless of where you are, there are these universal experiences that people are having that is the small talk to break the ice for deeper conversations.”
Mr. Donato says a frequent conversation starter on Quarantine Chat is: How is the pandemic going for you?
If things were normal, he would never even think about calling strangers to talk, he says.
Connecting with other people, even if they are strangers, helps to alleviate not only a person’s sense of loneliness, but also boredom and feelings of anxiety, says Melanie Badali, a Toronto-based psychologist.
“Humans are social animals. Being connected to others socially is important for both well-being and survival,” she says.
Concern for seniors prompted Charmaine Holland and Aliza Prodaniuk, friends who live in Southern Ontario, to launch a pen pal service in which people write letters to residents of long-term care and retirement homes across Canada.
The project, called the Caring and Connecting Pen Pal Initiative, has so far facilitated more than 800 letters to seniors since it launched this spring.
“One of the things we have lost to the pandemic is our sense of community,” Ms. Prodaniuk says.
The letters put a smile on the faces of seniors who may otherwise feel isolated and alone, Ms. Holland adds.
Volunteers are given advice on the best way to write to seniors – ”A lot of them really like pictures of people’s kids and dogs and other things,” Ms. Prodaniuk says – but are free to write about anything that’s on their mind.
Eileen Taylor volunteered to write letters through the project in the spring after seeing it mentioned on Facebook.
“I thought it would be fun. It would help people. I was shut in. I could be doing something positive, I thought,” says Ms. Taylor, a retiree who lives near Calgary.
She writes stories about her childhood and her family – ”I have a funny Irish mother,” Ms. Taylor says – and shares many tales of her dog, a little Yorkie who “attacks every big dog.”
“The letters are kind of a way of breaking through to say, ‘There is somebody who cares about you. We can’t see you, but we’re here,’” Ms. Taylor says.
While volunteers such as Ms. Taylor may be motivated by empathizing with seniors, and people who sign up for Quarantine Chat may just want to escape boredom and loneliness, there is a special intimacy that often comes from talking to strangers, a kind we often don’t have with people we know.
“There are things you’re expected to talk about with your friends. But you have this totally refreshing conversation with someone and in that moment you’re both deeply fascinated with one another, you’re paying so much attention to each other. That’s very nourishing and therapeutic,” says Ms. Baskin, the Quarantine Chat co-creator.
Mr. Donato said he has enjoyed just about every conversation he’s had on Quarantine Chat. It’s a window into the lives of other people he would otherwise never even talk to. It is, strangely, the silver lining of this year.
“If you’re not in a pandemic you’re not going to call some random person,” he says.
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