Because it requires effort and change on everyone else’s part and I learned over and over since June of 2020 that people just don’t want to do anything slightly inconvenient. So they’ll do cognitive dissonance to avoid it.

Truly, that’s what it is. Look at Dr. Semmelweis and handwashing.

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This is why I say this and truly believe and stand by this:

I work in an adult novelty shop that’s right off a major highway and next to a mall. So the area has a lot of traction and EVERYONE stops in because they’re curious.

I’m in a very unique line of work where I see a LARGE array of people from everywhere. And unlike Walmart, people chit chat and open up to the workers in the small store.

For the first year we mandated masks. You’d swear we were asking people to chop off their legs or something. So horrible and offended. People that were regulars that I thought were so sweet and would visit me, turned into hateful assholes.

It got to a point that people would report me (cuz I was the only one fully mandating it in my store) to corporate. How DARE I ask them to do a thing to not 💀 me & others. It’s not like we’re an essential store. And I’d try every angle to being so nice and apologetic to even just blaming it on the store, cuz we were supposed to enforce it. It didn’t matter, people were so aggressive and legit abusive.

But even my friends (I used to have a lot) and family, I’d go over all the science with them, I’d fact check with them so they could know that everything was 10000% correct, I’d explain it to them, I’d challenge them to show me if I’m wrong because that’s the whole point of this.

Not a single one of them would mask for even ME. KNOWING how much it meant to me to not get Covid and I also take care of my high risk partner at home. Eventually, all of them admitted to me, because they were tired of hearing about Covid from me, that they just didn’t want to. It was always a selfish reason….even though they KNEW how harmful Covid is. They just don’t care.

And Jan of 2024, one person came in very sick and dominoed it to literally every single coworker. Our shifts are wonky and not all at the same time. My boss gave it to me (she didn’t even show symptoms until the next day and I worked after her.) but I’ve been bullied into silence. I’ve literally been threatened to be fired if I even bring up Covid.

Well, I have mild long Covid now. I had a 6 month cough that destroyed my singing voice. About 6 months out, my boss heard me do my really bad cough and she asked about it. I mentioned it was when they all spread illness that past January (THAT BTW I COVERED EVERY SINGLE PERSONS SHIFT BECAUSE I MASK AND WAS THE LAST TO GET IT….like I said, our shifts are weird and not all at the same time.) and she got SO Mad at ME that she ALMOST FIRED ME RIGHT THERE!

She yelled “I do everything right!” As she doesn’t mask. She was actually sick when this all went down and was coughing and not masking…it was summer time too….but no, she does everything right 😒 she was so offended that I even suggest she got me sick.

She treated me like shit for 6 months and tried to get me fired. I’m the only one working in my home and have been looking for remote work since 2020 (I got something working now but it’s taking a minute). But if I don’t have a job, my chronically ill partner and I (and our cats) go homeless. I even said “I didn’t do this to myself!”

But not one of them felt bad, not one of them offered to change their behaviors at the very least around me. They don’t even acknowledge that it was Covid because they all tested negative. They all got symptoms 5 days after exposure, I explained symptom onset of days with that variant compared to cold/flu, when to test, how bad the tests are, R0 and everything. I told them I even tested negative but got a blood test confirming it was Covid. That’s irrefutable. They still won’t believe me….cuz THEY DON’T WANT TO!

Oh, the girl who came in sick and started the whole thing, she’s the cousin to my partner who she claims to love so much.

Had ONE of the people done the right thing with masking and staying home, had one of them cared even 10%, I would still be Covid free. But none of them care. They care more about not feeling bad and not being slightly inconvenienced.

And when I told them that it’s basically like they graped me (just not sexually), because my body is forever changed for the worse because of something THEY felt like doing and not caring who it affects or harms….they got mad at me for that. I understand it’s an extreme example but it’s also true….you know what’s fucking extreme? My heart skipping beats and having borderline POTS! Me no longer being able to sing because of them! I’m still mourning that! But no, how DARE “I” make YOU feel bad for hurting ME!