Originally Posted by
CommanderFun
I've been noticing a really bad effect the mask shit is having on my mind. Not in that just wearing one is messing with me. It's the entire situation, it's making me suspicious of and hateful of everyone around me. I had a mask tattler incident at the gym that got two jackoffs who I've never seen doing anything in the place (so I'm assuming they are either management, or La Fitness "trainers", which are useless) walking around telling people to pull their masks up while lifting. It only happened once, and so I KNOW it was because of a tattler. Someone went to the people working there, and complained because they saw people exercising with their masks pulled down so they could breathe and not suck up toxic levels of CO2. But because of the way this system is setup, I don't know who that person is, neither does anyone else. They are not exposed to the scorn of their peers for their shitty behavior. Because this hasn't happened all but once, I KNOW this fucker is a minority.
But the majority of the gym is full of people who exercise with the masks on, usually at silly reduced intensities that won't generate any significant adaptation. Because this happens so infrequently, I assume these people aren't pissy about mask wearing, they just don't want to get in trouble themselves. But here's the problem. Because of this anonymous tattler setup, mentally, potentially EVERY one of these neutral people becomes potentially the asshole who brought down the mask police. Now whenever I catch someone giving me a glance while lifting, my brain's immediate impulse is to think that person is some mask tattling asshole who's going to try and fuck with my life.
I even start to feel that way in other settings. I walk around the grocery seeing other people in masks, and I think, "Is this person some asshole who supports mask mandates?" The truth though, is that these people are a minority, but they are completely insulated from us knowing who they are. And their being protected puts those of us who disagree with them in a paranoid state where everyone we don't know could be one of them. They've encouraged people who line up with their shit agenda to be suspicious of and hateful of a hidden minority in the population ("nazis") for years, but now they've gotten those of us who don't agree to be paranoid of our own hidden-minority enemy. They are making us all hate each other.