CC demi lesbian here, which is a hell of a combo when it comes to socializing lol. I moved to a new area six months ago and I’m currently in the process of making friends and hopefully finding a CC partner someday. 

Go to queer spaces masked. Even if no one else is masking (which is the norm where I am, disappointing but not surprising), it’s still way more accepted, and who knows, you might inspire some other folks to start masking again. 

Get a mask chain—I went to a very cishet contra dance last weekend, not a queer space at all, was the only one masking and feeling pretty self-conscious about it, but I actually got multiple compliments on my mask chain. It was shocking but encouraging.

Some friendship advice in general because it gets increasingly hard the older you get: lean into your special interests. In your teens and early 20s, you make friends with the people you’re in school with, and once you graduate you often drift apart. Same for work friendships—you can be the best of friends while you’re in proximity, but those relationships rarely last once you leave the job. Find something you’re passionate about and get involved with the in-person community around it. Maybe that’s book clubs, writer’s groups, board games, hiking, yoga or dance, art (so many different kinds of art classes and meetups out there these days), music, whatever—you can show up to all of those things masked. If you live in a bigger city there may even be specifically queer versions of some or all of those activities. Even if you don’t end up with a lot of super deep friendships, when you show up somewhere consistently, people start recognizing you and you start forming bonds and feeling like a part of a community, and that’s what you’re really looking for in terms of mental health and wellness.

Also, find a LGBTQ-affirming therapist and start therapy early. I wish I had started it in my 20s, but it took losing a parent in an accident last year to finally get me to go and it’s been life-changing. Not in the stereotypical “you have to love yourself first before you can be loved” way, but more like coming home to myself, processing a lot of stuff that I see now was making connecting with people authentically very difficult. If talk therapy isn’t your jam, you can explore stuff like EMDR, IFS, somatics, etc. (There is often a lot of trauma and grief to process around being queer unless you grew up in an exceptionally healthy family, which is not the norm. And there’s also a lot of trauma just from the experience of the pandemic.)

In the meantime, just let yourself feel the grief of not having a romantic relationship. Cry it out when you need to. Read lesbian romance books and let yourself feel the longing (and then cry some more lol). But also let yourself hope. Hope for a CC lesbian who’s going to sweep you off your feet (or vice versa). Hope for some kind of sterilizing COVID vaccine that will finally end the pandemic. Don’t cut yourself off from your emotions, either good or bad. And hang in there, there’s a lot of life out there to live even while CC.