Professor where I work holds an annual party at her house for returning grad students. I turned down two invites as part of my virus-avoidance strategy. She (who recently recovered from her mild case...) made a funny face yesterday and said I could just hang outside and wear a mask. I told her you can't drink wine with a mask on, but that wasn't really the reason - I didn't elaborate on the fact that I'm not really interested in small talk with folks I don't know well anyway, it's torture at the best of times, but masked and outside in the fall chill, um, double nope. I'm 4x vaxxed and looking forward to the next booster but still wear the N95s pretty much everywhere I need to be indoors that isn't my 3x HEPA filtered office space. I'm also nearly 70 and am really not interested in getting it or any of the other lovely things going around right now. Also I think I'm just not a fan of people in general anymore... Hold the line folks, the pressure's building to just get on with things, but I'm DOING IT MY WAY. 😎
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The general attitude seems to be 'why try and fight it when it's everywhere.' I reckon if my N95 stops even one transmission a day, that's a drop in the big bucket, and if everyone did it, it would really help. But noooo.... we have to just give up? 😱 I'm going to start asking them what 'giving up' means to them -- no more mask? no more vaxxing? just travelling + gathering whenever/wherever?
Reminds me of the name one of us has: Introvert Misses Lockdown.
Co-worker down with it now. Her daughter brought it home from high school last week and now they're both sick.
I was at my state fair this weekend. I saw someone with a T-shirt that said: "Sorry I'm late. But I didn't want to come." I may need to get one of those.
I hear ya! Throughout this pandemic—especially because of the rampant disinformation and Trumpism—I have become (more) bristly and antisocial in general. I've never been good at small talk anyway. It appears that the predicted fall uptick is here in the Twin Cities (Minnesota). Last reports here are that deaths are slowly falling but hospitalizations are way up.
I'm the same. I hate chit chat with people I barely know in large group settings. I prefer a small group where I know nearly if not all the attendees or we share common interests. I take a long time to open up to people so if I'm in a large group I will be the one perusing the bookcase or petting the cat trying to avoid the true horror of being cornered by someone who wants to tell me the intimate details of their life because I have that kind of face. I'm fully vaccinated and boosted, but I don't want to test if my small pox vaccine from infancy will fight off monkey pox. I'm easing back into society on my terms.
Beam, I so hear you. 4x vaxxed, getting bivalent (+flu) tomorrow, and never indoors without an N95. I hardly ever see another person wearing a mask. Still watch the "daily numbers" and I ain't talking Powerball. I've seen cases & deaths decline nationally but already NY looks like it's rebounding and my mostly blue PA county case numbers never really went down, which is disconcerting to say the least. Everybody's like "Oh, have you had it? How many times?" as if they were referring to poison ivy or a hangnail. Not a party animal by any stretch, but will miss the freedom of outdoor interaction when winter closes in. Won't miss it enough, however, to take it indoors. Do it your way, Beam! I'm doing it my way too. And for anyone who mocks us, I have 2 words and they aren't Happy Birthday.
Damn straight! I am doing it my way as well. I sang this for us.