Mixing of social bubbles

[Kitkat99]

Where I am (channel islands for any confusion) we are gradually coming out of lockdown. We are in phase two at the moment. Part of this was your household can mix with one other house hold. They called this “mixing bubbles”. Both households had to mutually agree to share a “bubble” and agree not to see any other households.

I would of liked to see my boyfriend but we both live with grandparents. His grandparents wanted to see his cousins. Which is understandable I’m fine with that. We chose to share our bubble with my great gran who’s on her own.

Now phase three could be in as little as two weeks and they said this will probably include adding more bubbles to your household. They gave two as an example but it could be less, could be more.

Now I really want to see my boyfriend, but I don’t want to come across selfish. He has a bigger family than me. The only other people we can expand our household by is my cousin and auntie (my cousin is 14 and my gran says if I would rather have it be my boyfriend that’s perfectly fine) or my dad.

However my boyfriends grandparents have three sets of grand kids. Two sets are kids, two are late teens (my boyfriends siblings). One set they used to have around almost everyday so I’m guessing they are seeing them now but I presume they will want to see the other little ones. Which is understandable. Then there is also the fact my boyfriends mum wants to see him. So it’s a bit complicated.

My gran says I should talk to my boyfriend about this, and he should speak to his grandparents. However I’m worried I will come across selfish asking them to basically chose me over family. My boyfriend did seem annoyed he didn’t get a say in who shared the first bubble, and he obviously wants to see me. I just don’t know how I’d bring it up if I did.

Phase three could last 8 weeks so if not this time then that’s another 8 weeks without seeing him. I do feel like my mental health is struggling. I miss him and feel very lonely. My grandparents are great but it’s not the same. I don’t really have any friends either that I could share the bubble with to ease loneliness. Am I being selfish here for wanting to see him?

[WiseMonkey]

Geeze when we start mixing bubbles it can get really complicated! At present we (in NZ) are in Alert Level 3 so we can add 1 other person to our bubble, however that other person has to be faithful to us and not mix with anyone from another bubble.
So I thought I'd like to see my pregnant daughter and her partner but that would mean that my fiance couldn't see his daughter because that would be dipping into another bubble!! It was so confusing we decided to give it a miss and just stay within our bubble of two :D
Next week we're hopefully dropping to Alert Level 2 so we can come out of our bubbles and visit with family and friends but we must still keep our distance with people we don't know.

I feel sorry for those that are thinking of dating as they're all strangers in that game :shades:

ps. The Phil Collins ~ "Land of Confusion" springs to mind :wacko:

[Lencoboy]

'Trial-and-error' springs to mind here, depending on each individual country of course.

[pulisa]

Sounds like a recipe for confusion and arguments.

[Kitkat99]

Sounds like a recipe for confusion and arguments.

Yes it really is, we already have people complaining. Saying they have X amount of siblings and all want to see parents, or upset parents/grandparents that can’t see both or multiple sets of kids/grand kids.

A lot of people have elected not to pick anyone for this reason. To stop arguments and because you simply can’t chose one family member over the other like that especially with young children.

I’m lucky my family is small and simple. I think the one extra household rule was mostly just to “test” if people will cooperate and see if it causes an increase in spreading as well a for people who live alone to be less lonely. Sucks if you’re a big family.