Grief experts have explained that the emotion that has surprised a lot of people, me included, over the death of someone aged 96 whom we never met, is real and defined as “parasocial”.
Professor Michael Cholbi of Edinburgh University, told the journal Nature that some people cope with parasocial grief by adopting some qualities of the departed person. Others pointed out that this grief wears off pretty soon compared with the regular, unremitting kind. Personally, I have taken comfort in what might be called parasocial joy: the near-simultaneous disappearance from public life of another person I never met: Boris Johnson.
