covid, fomo, and me: not again . . .

Two lines are filling me with FOMO (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

This time it was me canceling because of Covid.

This past March, the theater season kicked into high gear following a two-year pandemic lockdown and what can best be described as a soft opening, with strict Covid regulations and, primarily, shows with small casts, at least at first.

As if making up for lost time, a frenzy of activity ensued. In April, I started going to three or four events a week, including art lectures, music, dance, and book talks, and by October the calendar really heated up, with as many as five, six, or seven events scheduled for several seven-day periods.

But then came Covid — again.

Shows were being canceled or postponed all over the place, with notifications often arriving the day of the performance. Since I’m a Drama Desk voter, if a show goes on but a major actor is out for any reason, my tickets are exchanged for another night. But when you are booked weeks and weeks in advance — I’m pretty full through Christmas — there is no room to squeeze anything in at the last minute, so I’m not always able to reschedule.

During the pandemic, I was not overcome with FOMO, the fear of missing out, since little was going on, even as I covered more than a thousand virtual events beginning in March 2020. But as the entertainment world transitioned back to live, in-person performances, I was quickly overwhelmed. As an arts journalist, I am invited to dozens and dozens of shows of all kinds every week. I carefully select what my readers and I will be most interested in, with a responsibility to see as many Drama Desk–eligible plays and musicals as I can.

I make my own choices on what to attend and what I just can’t possibly fit in, since I’m the boss at my website, This Week in New York. FOMO sets in when I see something I end up not liking while my colleagues are raving on social media about a production I chose to skip. Or when I have a seven-show week and a friend invites me to a concert or a party but I must decline: I’m already full-up.

For every presentation I see, there are numerous that I miss. It seems that everyone I knew went to Paul McCartney at the Meadowlands in June and had the time of their lives, but I was watching a hybrid Chekhov play that night. I checked out video after video on YouTube from the Macca gig, but it wasn’t the same.

Despite taking precautions, Suzan Lori-Parks’s Plays for the Plague Year has had several Covid cancellations (photo by Joan Marcus)

A show I was desperate to see at the Public, about how one Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright dealt with the pandemic, was canceled twice because of Covid and had to take a hiatus; when a friend of mine posted on Facebook how much she liked it, I was hit by FOMO again.

I’m not complaining about my lifestyle; the opportunity to experience hundreds of events a year, and share them on twi-ny, is a thrill I will never take for granted.

But as Andrew K. Przybylski, Kou Murayama, Cody R. DeHaan, and Valerie Gladwell explained in the abstract from their 2013 article “Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out”:

“Social media utilities have made it easier than ever to know about the range of online or offline social activities one could be engaging. On the upside, these social resources provide a multitude of opportunities for interaction; on the downside, they often broadcast more options than can be pursued, given practical restrictions and limited time. This dual nature of social media has driven popular interest in the concept of Fear of Missing Out — popularly referred to as FOMO. Defined as a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent, FOMO is characterized by the desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing.”

I desperately try to keep our Sundays free from dance or theater, instead hanging out with friends and family, going to museums, or watching sports at home. But when I get invited to a show that my wife and I really want to see, and the only time we can go is on a Sunday afternoon, well, we can’t stop ourselves.

Which brings me back to Covid.

(Covid Data Tracker image courtesy of CDC)

This week I was scheduled to see six shows in addition to having dinner with friends one night and going to a party on Saturday night. However, I started feeling icky on Thursday night. I worked from home on Friday — I’m an executive managing editor at a major children’s book publisher by day, where I recently worked on a picture book by a popular television personality whose two-time Drama Desk–nominated husband died of Covid in July 2020 — and decided to take a Covid test before going to see a two-night-only production at BAM.

Boom — positive.

Despite continuing to wear my mask on public transportation, in theaters and museums even where it’s optional, and at the drugstore and supermarket, I contracted a symptomatic Covid case for the second time. I previously had it last December and missed Christmas.

This time around, no Trojan Women from Korea in Brooklyn on Friday. No Evanston Salt Flats Climbing by Pulitzer Prize finalist Will Arbery on Saturday afternoon. No party celebrating the fourth anniversary of Dharma House on Saturday night in Queens.

On Monday night, my wife and I are supposed to have our thirtieth anniversary dinner in the Village. I better be negative by then. And my sister will kill me if I miss Thanksgiving.

And then, after Thanksgiving, it’s back to the trenches, with seven shows in six days.

Again, no matter how much I see, there will always be more that I don’t see. And there will be yet more Covid cancellations in the near future.

Life was much easier when we weren’t aware of every single thing that was happening every single day in New York City (and around the world). Maybe the key to happiness, and avoiding FOMO, is to stay off social media. It wouldn’t be the only reason.