QUESTION NO. 7: SHOULD I confront my righteous friend?
I have a friend who I feel has taken to wearing masks more to assert some bizarre form of lefty identity than to "stay safe." He's vaccinated, but never takes his mask off around others—even outdoors, even when everyone else (all vaccinated) has their masks off. Actually, it feels like he *especially* doesn't take his mask off when other people have their masks off. Like he somehow *extra* keeps it on!
And he never, ever, ever misses an opportunity to talk about how terrible people are who don't wear masks in public. It feels like masks have become his version of a MAGA hat, and it sucks to be around it.
I don't think he'd be receptive to a conversation about it, but it aggravates me to the point that I don't really want to hang out with him right now. Should I bother trying to broach the subject with him? Or should I work harder to find empathy, accept that everyone has been living through some pretty traumatic shit, and just deal with the fact some people are gonna act fuckin weird for a while?
—Shortie No Mask
Perspective #1: ROSE
Dear Shortie No Mask,
I sympathize with your friend. These days—especially during the pandemic but really always—it can be so difficult to know how to be a good person. Every time we peer into an illuminated screen, we are faced with a blitz of stories about human suffering, global destruction, systemic inequality, more. These were always people's stories, but they weren’t always all of our stories, all of the time. I think we humans are still adjusting to this level of constant awareness. One result is that we often resort to meager acts of virtue signaling in our earnest attempts to do the right thing. Jia Tolentino writes about this in Trick Mirror. She says, “[O]ur world...makes communication about morality very easy but actual moral living very hard.”
I know I do this. How else can I explain the Black Lives Matter sign in my yard, or even my commitment to not eat meat? These acts—one entirely performative and the other essentially so, considering the actual impact of one individual’s food choices—are not going to change the world. They are social acts, they tell other people something about us. Perhaps even more importantly, they help us tell ourselves who we are, and how we are living as individual beings stuck within layers and layers of systems we cannot control.
All of this is a very long way of saying, do not be too hard on your insufferably righteous friend. But I do think it is just fine to gently nudge him toward critical thinking. We all need to push each other, and to support each other, in the endless and confusing slog of figuring out how to be.
Sincerely,
Rose
Rose is a gray haired and wise future version of one of the many middle-aged Sarahs in Flyover Country.
perspective #2: DELTA
Dear Shortie No Mask,
The pandemic has been all about exposure—the actual exposure of so many people to a devastating new virus; an exposure of all the flaws in our healthcare systems and in our just-in-time supply chains; an exposure of the frailties of how the school system is delicately intertwined with adults’ abilities to carry out their workforce roles. It has also exposed new nuances of difference even among the people with whom we are closest: differences in our conception of risk, differences in how we interpret and abide by rules, differences in our comfort levels as we circulate among other people applying their own risk calculations and interpretations. Even in the best of times, doesn’t it sometimes seem to be a bit of a miracle that people ever align enough to get things done, to form friendships that last for years, to live in happy long-term relationships? The fine grain of this new challenge—a global pandemic the likes of which the majority of us have not seen in our lifetimes—has exposed every possible fissure in our relationships with one another.
There’s also been a way in which the pandemic has offered some people an opportunity to feel strongly about something. (To state the obvious, we don’t all feel strongly about the same things in this world.) Perhaps your friend felt invigorated by their strong alliance with the public health goals of mask-wearing, and wants to keep rolling with that spirit for a while, a kind of “never forget” situation. I shudder thinking about the pace at which the virus and its impacts unfurled while the US sorted out (or didn’t sort out) our mask rules in the early days. Now, between the shock of the arrival of the virus, the amplified life-and-death situation we were all thrust into, the long duration of the pandemic that we experienced in bizarre bursts of “maybe it’ll be gone in the next two weeks” until more than a year had passed, and the current hope that we’re really coming out of it—nerves may still be a little bit fried all around.
These thoughts lean heavily on trying to tune in to where this friend is coming from—and, full disclosure, I also tend to lean away from confrontation—but on your side it seems completely fine to take an in-person break from this friend for a bit (or, for a bit longer, as it were). Perhaps you could chat on the phone for a while? Or play catch across a wide open field? (Skip the zoom calls just in case!) Try to get away from thoughts of the mask, and try to reconnect with the friend who’s behind the mask, even if they don’t yet want to show their face in public (or to give others a break for showing theirs)! People are going to be weird for a while—perhaps as weird as they’ve ever been… only now with new weirdnesses exposed.
Warmly,
Delta
Delta is a curious observer and dedicated student of humans and their intriguing ways.
perspective #3: JEAN
Dear Shortie No Mask,
People are definitely acting weird--and weirdly aggressive--these days. Public shaming seems to have evolved into citizen policing, which can lend itself to the feeling of being watched everywhere you go, both IRL and online. I can understand the urge to shame, and I have seen the acts on these urges play out on social media--often, in the form of thinly veiled, public posts really meant for 1-2 persons in one’s orbit. This urge to shame comes from being aggrieved in some way by these persons in the past, and then extrapolating from them to the masses. A few people turns into an army of [bigots/anti vaxxers/anti maskers/insert aggrieving party here] in one’s projected sense of the world. As the post gathers likes or reshares, this army becomes a common enemy against which to unite, to blame, and to hate.
Hate is a strong word, but its definition fits this context perfectly: “to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest.”
Anger is slightly different: “a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; ire.”
Fear is very different: “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined…”
I think it might be worth exploring who or what is inspiring your friend’s reaction to unmasked people, and what his reaction actually consists of emotionally.
Regarding who or what:
What has his experience with Covid been like? Has he known anyone to die? Does he support immunocompromised or elderly family members? Has he had health problems in the past? Does he have OCD, or anxiety around health issues?
What public health information or news is he consuming? For example, the CDC now says vaccinated people do not have to wear masks outdoors, or indoors in small groups (don’t quote me on that, but it’s something like this). What sources does he trust and not trust?
Regarding his emotional reaction -- when he talks about unmasked people being terrible, is he angry? Hateful? Fearful? Or something else?
If he is angry, perhaps he feels wronged by the few Karens and Kens who refused to wear masks in stores during the height of the pandemic. Or perhaps he feels wronged by right wing politicians, or by right wing media, or by left wing media, left wing politicians, or by rich people who could live in luxury during the pandemic, or by his friends who partied during the pandemic instead of adhering to public health guidelines.
If he is hateful, perhaps his anger has been stoked enough times to solidify into aversion for those he feels wronged by.
If he is fearful, perhaps he is afraid of death, and the thought of facing his own mortality. Perhaps the mask is not his version of a MAGA hat, but his version of a safety blanket.
In answer to your question, Should I bother trying to broach the subject with him? Or should I work harder to find empathy, accept that everyone has been living through some pretty traumatic shit, and just deal with the fact some people are gonna act fuckin weird for a while?
Unless the person is getting in my face about how I conduct my life, I tend to err on the side of non-confrontation. If just for the simple fact that I wouldn’t want to do unto him what I don’t like being done unto me. This stems from my adherence to the Buddhist principle, aka the inverse of the golden rule, do not do unto others what you would not have others do unto you. In a nutshell this means we shouldn’t project our own values or ways of being onto a person, since what we find good and desirable may not be deemed so by the other person. So if I were to broach him about his mask wearing, I would be, in a sense, policing him to get him to live according to my values.
However, it sounds like your friend is getting in your face about how you choose to wear your mask (or not). Even if he is not broaching it with you directly, harping on other people not wearing masks to you when clearly you, too, are not wearing a mask, is projecting some value system on to you that you didn’t sign up for. The next time this happens, I would ask him what his deal is. I’m not policing you, so why you policing me? Especially with all the evidence saying it’s fine to be unmasked in the great (or small) outdoors, and especially for those who are vaccinated. What is he afraid of? Why does it make him angry? What is really soliciting his judgment and hate, if it is hate? I would ask out of exasperation, but also out of genuine curiosity, because the reasoning behind his judgment is not immediately apparent to me, and I would like to understand and see where he is coming from. After learning this, you and your friend may still disagree. But in the process of confrontation, you may come away understanding your friend, and those like him, a little bit better, maybe not in a rational way (because we can kind of rationalize it now, can’t we?), but in an emotional way, a way that makes it easier for us to be compassionate.
Compassion -- a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
Yours truly,
Jean
Denny, Sunnie, or Jean — Denny and Sunnie are retired Korean American boomers who are also ex- husband and wife. Jean is their daughter.