Actor Hugh Grant’s appearance on “The View” Thursday featured a mild insult of two of the ABC talk show’s five panelists — and reminded us just how much our world has changed in the past few years.
On Thursday, the British actor appeared on the show to discuss his viral moment at the Oscars, but before the hosts dug into that subject, Grant addressed his awkward entrance onto the set.
“That was a difficult entrance,” he said, “because there’s no kissing anymore, right? Kissing’s stopped.”
Grant was addressing the fact that prior to the pandemic, he likely would have greeted the women with a kiss or a hug.
When host Joy Behar clarified that it was because of COVID-19, he jokingly replied, “I do have a lot of COVID, so that’s probably why.”
The hosts seemed rather eager for a kiss and asked him if he wanted to kiss them, saying that they could make an exception for him.
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“I wanted to kiss three of you,” he replied, without naming the two hosts he didn’t want to kiss.
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Host Sara Haines laughed and said, “I love an honest man.”
This was a rather comical little segment. Grant was breaking the ice with the women on the panel before moving into the reason he was invited onto the show.
It also, however, gives us a sobering reminder of just how much our daily lives and our interactions with others have changed over the last three years because of the coronavirus outbreak and the response.
Prior to the pandemic, we took personal and intimate interactions with others for granted. We were used to greeting our friends and loved ones with a handshake, a hug or a kiss.
Now, COVID has made our interactions with each other less personal. Thanks to the social distancing mandates that were put in place during the pandemic, people became used to more distant and cautious interactions with others.
Even though the restrictions have been lifted and life has pretty much returned to normal, some people are still terrified of the virus to the point where they still are unwilling to have these kinds of personal interactions with people.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. COVID also made us get used to other things in our interactions with others that we would not have thought of prior to the pandemic.
Thanks to the mask mandates, we had to get used to the idea of not being able to see the faces of our friends, loved ones, co-workers and anyone else we interacted with.
And that was if we were even allowed to meet them in person in the first place, as we also had to get used to meeting people only virtually over Zoom or the phone thanks to the government-ordered lockdowns.
The pandemic drastically changed the way we interact with people and the way we think about other people.
Prior to COVID, no one would have thought much about being able to see people’s faces when you talk to them or being able to meet them in person.
Grant’s appearance on “The View” reminds us that despite the fact that the pandemic is over, some people still have a long way to go before they will see our lives prior to 2020 as normal.
Hopefully, someday, we will all get over our fear of COVID and return to the healthy interactions with others we used to have.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
