Thirty-three-year-old Nick Jameson of Nashville, Tennessee, couldn't have been more moved to hear of the havoc wreaked in people’s professional lives and personal relationships by the nationwide lockdown due to coronavirus - and could only be grateful that he himself had suffered no such damage.
“People are really suffering, man,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “I’m very fortunate that I didn’t really have anything going on before COVID-19. So my life hasn’t taken much of a hit.”
He chuckled. “If anything, my life is a little easier now – no social pressures. And it's become a lot more socially acceptable to be unemployed."
That being said, Jameson is extremely sympathetic, if not empathetic, regarding the troubles faced by families as a result of the Tennessee governor’s shelter-in-place order. “I hear it’s a real strain on relationships, even couples who have been together a long time,” he said. "Some of them are at each other’s throats.”
Single now for nearly two decades, Jameson explained that, fortunately, he himself does not face the challenge of living with an intimate partner in close quarters with no other social outlets.
Overall, as someone who grew up in a dysfunctional family, Jameson stated that he feels quite optimistic regarding not only his own personal trajectory, but that of society in general. “Things are becoming more and more authoritarian and regimented, with more and more personal restrictions and an even greater emphasis on political correctness,” he said. “I find the structure reassuring.”
