It’s just super frustrating seeing people who are supposedly my brothers and sisters, who I’ve been there to the hilt, who know that my partner is struggling, who know that I’m terrified. We’ve gone through the science and racial and class inequalities together and they’ve voiced how they should mask a hundred times. And then they come to meet me IRL totally fucking unmasked, without even a fucking apology.
Well, if you’re “back to normal”, I’ll sit and watch you eat outside, but I’m not taking my mask off in front of you. I’ll wait till you finish your meal, and I’ll head home early. If I’ve complained about no masking two times already, you heard it enough, I’m not going to complain again.
Am I overreacting?
Edit: for those of griping that you’re not allowed to do COVID minimisation in this comm. These would be valid answer:
- Maybe your friend forgot
- Maybe your friend was tired
- Maybe your friend was hung over
- Your friend made a mistake but you should forgive him
- I’m not yet fully covid conscious, but I’m trying
- We can’t all be perfect. Hopefully they do better next time.
Not acceptable:
- Oh here’s a tidbit about masks that’s been disproven in the science literature 10x already
- Oh the chuds and libs aren’t masking, and I feel peer pressured
Absolutely not. I work in the public sector and masking is socially definitely not ok. So to be able to earn a living, I have given up my safety and the safety of my partner and replaced it with avoidance of all I can avoid and a nasal spray. I mask whenever I get to do things in my own way.
This is a country where I have not seen a single mask in years now and not heard a single person irl voice concern about covid. Meanwhile me and my partner have had a rough time with the virus every time, although I suppose less than the people doing “normal” as I for example opted out from in person studies fully last winter due to the wave and everyone being sick.
Non-masking as a hegemonic position literally shuts people out of society. I would have loved to be present for my own bacherol seminars, but it didn’t feel safe. It erodes the very participation libs always love to bang on about. And it’s very much a class issue. It’s workers like me that die from it, care workers, immigrants, women, the poors, the disabled, elderly. It’s also a whiteness issue. White people, even leftists, stopped caring the moment they understood that their privileged asses are safer.
I’m curious what you mean by a nasal spray.
Do you carry around a saline spray or similar and use it regularly to help mucus clearance from your nose to prevent infection? I’ve never heard of people using a nasal spray as a precaution against infection.
It’s this iota-carrageenan spray that might be a total grift, but I suppose it allows me to think I am at least trying to do something. Can’t say I’ve heard much updates about it, but it’s something I can easily get and afford.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8493111/
I am also going to buy a good air purifier for my personal office where I see clients now that the summer wave looks to be starting. Would have had it there from day one, but those are expensive. I absolutely hate that this is what this neoliberal hell is making us do to protect ourselves even a bit, even this is down to privilege and purchase power. Commodified covid protection.
