How do you talk to people?
How do you talk to people?
I'm a neurodivergent, asocial person. Always have been. Though i still have had a few friends during my life. I managed to get by for a while with just the 2-3 people I talk to, but recently I've started to get really lonely. The way i've made friends in the past has been someone approaching me, not the other way around though. I don't know how to make friends/acquaintances with other people on my own. Me growing up with the internet probably played a role in my lack of real life social skills, i'm guessing
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preferably without spreading covid or a novel bird flu mutation
the sorts of people attending group things are unlikely to be comrades, idk what all this 2019-ass advice is.
Though i think most of the advice given can be relatively easily be applied to online spaces and other social interactions that don't endanger people through diseases and such. But yeah, more attention should be brought to, as you mentioned, an ongoing pandemic
Ok so do you have any suggestions or did you just want to make the OP feel bad?
Is this to say that there is absolutely no responsible way to attend any sort of group event, therefore anyone who does so is being uncomradely; or is this to say that there is not much point in being friends with anyone who isn't already a communist, therefore one should avoid spaces which will be dominated by non-communists; or is this to say both or neither?
Edit: I see the COVID comm has some resources in the sidebar. I will read covid.tips now and resign myself to whichever punishment is befitting for not taking the spread of disease seriously enough.
It is not a difficult proposition to understand, and one people like me have been trying to tell anyone who would listen about for years; none of you listen. COVID spreads via the air we breath and in spaces with elevated CO2 (e.g. indoors) this is especially so, as the same air is recirculating. Whenever you share a space with someone who is not, at minimum, wearing a respirator at any time they are around other people, you are both taking a risk at being infected and becoming a disease vector for others. Asymptomatic infections are more common now than ever, so you may not even know you're sick or feel anything. The best and easiest way to improve the odds for yourself and others not being infected and possibly disabled for life by Long COVID is to not do things in crowded indoor spaces where it can be avoided, and if it really can't be avoided, then everyone should be wearing N95 or better quality respirators anytime they will be around one another. Anything other than this at the bare minimum increases your infection risk, and the risks of everyone around you.
Is this to say that there is absolutely no responsible way to attend any sort of group event
Unless everyone or at least a majority in attendance are on board with mitigations, in the midst of a global pandemic that has not ended, that is correct. Sorry.
You aren't the one who needs to apologize, given you're the one who's actually been informed and responsible the whole time... Buuuut saying sorry is in this case probably less about you taking responsibility for a terrible situation you didn't actually cause, and more about acknowledging yourself as the bearer of news so dissatisfactory that hardly anybody actually wants to listen to it. That type of consolation might also have the people's health as its aim, since it's better for the few who'd listen to sigh and say "damn" than to writhe with stubbed toes from kicking something at the thought of, well, you know.
The best protection I have is something called "FFP2 NR", I don't know how good that is but I'm assuming it's better than a standard blue surgical mask. I don't know how often I'm supposed to switch these masks out, either. I don't have many so I'll buy more at the next opportunity, and I'll aim for this ideal type.
Now I am very sorry. I am so used to people talking like you without sincerity, and I can see that was wrong. I worried that I was too aggro to you after I responded so please forgive me. These are really tumultuous times to still care about the dangers of COVID, even in spaces which should know better. We are critical of the state line in every case but this one, apparently...
An FFP2 should be perfectly acceptable, yes, though I am not totally qualified to give advice about them specifically. From what I know they are equivalent to the N95 grade respirators in the states and those can reportedly be used for several days before they're no longer effective, but they need to be stored in a sealed bag or something similar after being opened. I always play it safe with the disposable respirators when I use them and consider them single-use, at most for the rest of the day, but my similarly-cautious roommate does reuse them for a few days in a row and to my knowledge is fine. I am not sure if the similarities between the standards are enough to recommend this, but I do know FFP2/3 is what you want, and ideally ones with straps that go around your head since the seal with ear straps can be weaker and more easily compromised. No gaps for air to come in or out of any part touching your face when you breathe. It will be an adjustment, but your body will get used to the pace of oxygen; I know marathon runners who wear them every day and still perform.
Aggression is no more or less an appropriate response than "babying" people about these things. I'd say I deserve some aggression for shirking my responsibilities in a way that endangered the lives of others, but even if I had done absolutely nothing wrong, I tend to treat unjust aggression like any other bit of misdelivered mail... Really, I feel like I generally have a particular attitude towards being or doing wrong, which unfortunately does not keep me from either, but which still ends up surprising many people who are used to having to drag people kicking and screaming towards the waters of truth and good, only for them to run off the second they're let go of.
Thank you for your advice.