How often do you receive pushback from friends over still taking the pandemic seriously? Is anyone who pushes back worth keeping as a friend? What exactly does your kind of socializing look like during this pandemic (i.e. virtual and/or outdoors and/or in indoor private settings)?

I'm trying to get back out there because I've been in a bad spot mentally and have found it hard to trust people more broadly, but the way I'm currently living is probably not healthy for me, and I feel like I do need some kind of support system beyond my family and the one friend actually still taking the pandemic as seriously as me. But as I try to get out of my house more, I need to figure out the kind of boundaries I want to set, the kinds of activities that I feel comfortable with (definitely a preference for outdoor stuff), etc.

  • MF_BROOM [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Do y'all make yourself and your friends take COVID tests before visiting them? Or maybe only situationally, i.e. if you're going to be spending time indoors with them?

    For whatever good it does lmao, I know those test kits can have quite a few false positives/negatives. I've also increasingly heard that swabbing the throat/mouth AND nostrils more effectively can detect COVID, even though that obviously isn't the authorized use of the test kits, idk. But in the absence of any actual public health policy, probably still one of the best individual ways to keep ourselves and others safe I suppose.

    • macabrett
      ·
      2 years ago

      I still only meet people outside and only go some place if I have to (usually doctor's appointments) and that's with an N95 mask.

      I've got a few autoimmune diseases and it sucks. Covid will likely kill me. My experience with chronic illness has convinced me I might not want to be alive if I get more chronic illness and that scares me. Long covid scares me. It sounds a LOT like having an autoimmune disease and I promise you, you do not want to live that way.

      That said, it's gonna be hard to navigate this world going forward. I wish we had a government that cared.

    • voice_of_hermes [he/him,any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Sometimes. Depends on the circumstances. For the most part the social bubbles I still touch on are pretty isolated, and everyone is really careful to isolate and do a PCR test after risky activity like traveling. The rapid tests are unreliable enough and limited enough in purpose that IMO it's almost better to pretend they don't exist, unless you absolutely MUST do something face-to-face (indoors) after reasonable suspicion of potential exposure.