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> 6. Whether it’s OK to go to that thing or not This part really resonated. What a weird year it's been. Finding the right balance between having a social li

> 6. Whether it’s OK to go to that thing or not This part really resonated. What a weird year it's been. Finding the right balance between having a social life and being safe + conscientious has proven to be exhausting and depressing. My wife and I have chosen to be super safe and turn down almost all social engagements, even ones with close family who promised to wear masks and social distance. If it wasn't a life or death thing, we felt the "right" thing to do was to host the even on Zoom, or not at all. That decision never came lightly though and missing events with friends and family always weighed on us heavily. We'd never know if we were doing the right thing or if we were being too cautious. Especially when, on Facebook or Instagram, we would see close friends without masks hanging out and partying, while we sequestered ourselves from the rest of the world. It's hard not to have emotions in a situation like that. At times I have felt frustrated, angry, tired, etc. Everyone has a different perspective on this whole thing, a different feeling of risk, and a difference decision about how to behave during it all. I long for the day when we can be human again without having to pass every social decision through some matrix of risk calculation.

loganwedwards 6y ago
This has been my experience to the T. Hindsight may provide some reinforcement one way or another, but if we had to do this all over again, I likely would not change much about our quarantine behavior patterns. Our crew just does not want to be a statistic (even if our demographic is of lower risk). Hang in there!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sneak 6y ago
> Especially when, on Facebook or Instagram, we would see close friends without masks hanging out and partying, while we sequestered ourselves from the rest of the world. People that recklessly and selfishly endanger themselves and others would not remain my close friends.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Seriously. Whatever happened to social reinforcement and shaming? If the friends posted videos of themselves drunk driving or hurting animals, people would have no problem replying "Dude, what the hell?? That's fucked up and you're not my friend anymore." But they post themselves horsing around partying, putting themselves and others at risk during a worldwide deadly pandemic? All of a sudden it's not cool to shame people. WTF is that about? My friends know our household is pretty strict about gatherings. We've maybe had a handful of people over, mostly one at at time, and only when it was totally necessary. My parents knew better than to even mention whatever their crazy Thanksgiving and Christmas plans were--they knew they could count us out because I was very clear with them throughout the year. Honestly I'm not that torn and none of this weighs heavily on me because I'm not on Facebook or any other social media. I don't get bombarded with pictures of loved ones acting irresponsibly and taking risks with their lives every day, so out of sight, out of mind. My wife on the other hand is on facebook and insta all day and took 2020 much worse. Another example of social media's wonderful redeeming qualities.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    > All of a sudden it's not cool to shame people. WTF is that about? I think it's because there are a lot of them proportionally, as responses to the pandemic have been rather divided even within close social groups. Try shaming party-goers in your friendship circle on, say, social media, and you might find the blowback hard going as "they" in sufficient numbers shame you back for being too cautious or controlling, and you become the pariah. Even if you're confident you're right, you can feel the loss of social capital. And who wants to be known as the sourpuss who tries to ruin other people's happy times? Maybe feeling like losing social capital is even an illusion, amplified by the way social media distorts social group feelings. It only takes a few people to point the shame back at you to induce a feeling that the larger group sees you that way, whether they do or not, because your other social connections tend not to speak up in your defence.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      I don't know. I still stick with the drunk driving analogy. Going to a basement rave with 100 others during a deadly pandemic is as unambiguously wrong as drunk driving. If a bunch of friends are going to shame me back for "being a pussy and not drunk driving with them" then they're not my friends. I guess if I were back in my 20s I'd care more about being the pariah and try to find some way of being polite and keeping the relationships. But I'm blessed to be a 45+ old geezer now who has largely stopped worrying about what others think of me. If one of my gambling buddies tried to convince me to head to a casino with him right now, I'd have no problem saying, "Dude, we've been pals for a while but WTF are you talking about? Use your head, buddy." and I don't think either of us would take it the wrong way.
fossuser 6y ago
If it helps - you did the right thing. My fiancée and I have been extremely cautious, we don’t go anywhere, we order amazon fresh, we work from home, etc. She had to go into work a few times last week to build her machine (she’s a Mechanical Engineer), she wore a mask at all times, avoided interaction with other people. Out of an abundance of caution she got a PCR test afterward - it came back positive. Now we’re wearing masks in the house and she’s staying in her room. She’s asymptomatic thankfully, an initial test for me came back negative but it’s too early to be definitive (and we were with each other prior to her positive test result). It sucks - the anxiety was already fairly extreme prior to this, but now waiting around to see if I develop symptoms and seeing story after story of random healthy person dying is really upsetting. False positive probability with PCR is quite low, 0.5% to 2%. Whatever the stress of social isolation, being isolated apart from your SO while waiting to see if you develop symptoms is 10x times worse. People don’t take it seriously because they just don’t think it’ll happen to them.
- rubicon33 6y ago
  Sorry to hear about what you and your fianceé are going through. That really sucks, especially considering that you have both been so careful. Pretty unfair, life. I hope you both weather it fine. Some people seem to experience almost no symptoms; I hope that is the case here. Maybe she only got hit with a small viral load given how safe she has been... in which case hopefully her body is able to defend and create antibodies. Would be curious to hear how things evolve for you, if you’re willing and able to share. Good luck.
- divbzero 6y ago
  Wishing the best for you and your fiancée. It sounds like she’s okay for now and hoping it’s just a quarantine and things will be back to “normal” for you.
- asadkn 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing the story. Just something interesting you might want to read into. False positives can be much higher than 0.5-4% figures, depending on how you look at it. Out of the positive results, about 13% [1] and 25% [2] were false. In [2] 400 out of 1570 positives would be false. I have seen as high as 40% being false in other publications. [1] https://www.aacc.org/science-and-research/scientific-shorts/2020/false-positive-results-in-real-time-reverse-transcription-polymeras https://www.aacc.org/science-and-research/scientific-shorts/... [2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895843/S0519_Impact_of_false_positives_and_negatives.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

loganwedwards 6y ago

This has been my experience to the T. Hindsight may provide some reinforcement one way or another, but if we had to do this all over again, I likely would not change much about our quarantine behavior patterns. Our crew just does not want to be a statistic (even if our demographic is of lower risk). Hang in there!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sneak 6y ago

> Especially when, on Facebook or Instagram, we would see close friends without masks hanging out and partying, while we sequestered ourselves from the rest of the world. People that recklessly and selfishly endanger themselves and others would not remain my close friends.

ryandrake 6y ago
Seriously. Whatever happened to social reinforcement and shaming? If the friends posted videos of themselves drunk driving or hurting animals, people would have no problem replying "Dude, what the hell?? That's fucked up and you're not my friend anymore." But they post themselves horsing around partying, putting themselves and others at risk during a worldwide deadly pandemic? All of a sudden it's not cool to shame people. WTF is that about? My friends know our household is pretty strict about gatherings. We've maybe had a handful of people over, mostly one at at time, and only when it was totally necessary. My parents knew better than to even mention whatever their crazy Thanksgiving and Christmas plans were--they knew they could count us out because I was very clear with them throughout the year. Honestly I'm not that torn and none of this weighs heavily on me because I'm not on Facebook or any other social media. I don't get bombarded with pictures of loved ones acting irresponsibly and taking risks with their lives every day, so out of sight, out of mind. My wife on the other hand is on facebook and insta all day and took 2020 much worse. Another example of social media's wonderful redeeming qualities.
- jlokier 6y ago
  > All of a sudden it's not cool to shame people. WTF is that about? I think it's because there are a lot of them proportionally, as responses to the pandemic have been rather divided even within close social groups. Try shaming party-goers in your friendship circle on, say, social media, and you might find the blowback hard going as "they" in sufficient numbers shame you back for being too cautious or controlling, and you become the pariah. Even if you're confident you're right, you can feel the loss of social capital. And who wants to be known as the sourpuss who tries to ruin other people's happy times? Maybe feeling like losing social capital is even an illusion, amplified by the way social media distorts social group feelings. It only takes a few people to point the shame back at you to induce a feeling that the larger group sees you that way, whether they do or not, because your other social connections tend not to speak up in your defence.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    I don't know. I still stick with the drunk driving analogy. Going to a basement rave with 100 others during a deadly pandemic is as unambiguously wrong as drunk driving. If a bunch of friends are going to shame me back for "being a pussy and not drunk driving with them" then they're not my friends. I guess if I were back in my 20s I'd care more about being the pariah and try to find some way of being polite and keeping the relationships. But I'm blessed to be a 45+ old geezer now who has largely stopped worrying about what others think of me. If one of my gambling buddies tried to convince me to head to a casino with him right now, I'd have no problem saying, "Dude, we've been pals for a while but WTF are you talking about? Use your head, buddy." and I don't think either of us would take it the wrong way.

fossuser 6y ago

If it helps - you did the right thing. My fiancée and I have been extremely cautious, we don’t go anywhere, we order amazon fresh, we work from home, etc. She had to go into work a few times last week to build her machine (she’s a Mechanical Engineer), she wore a mask at all times, avoided interaction with other people. Out of an abundance of caution she got a PCR test afterward - it came back positive. Now we’re wearing masks in the house and she’s staying in her room. She’s asymptomatic thankfully, an initial test for me came back negative but it’s too early to be definitive (and we were with each other prior to her positive test result). It sucks - the anxiety was already fairly extreme prior to this, but now waiting around to see if I develop symptoms and seeing story after story of random healthy person dying is really upsetting. False positive probability with PCR is quite low, 0.5% to 2%. Whatever the stress of social isolation, being isolated apart from your SO while waiting to see if you develop symptoms is 10x times worse. People don’t take it seriously because they just don’t think it’ll happen to them.

rubicon33 6y ago
Sorry to hear about what you and your fianceé are going through. That really sucks, especially considering that you have both been so careful. Pretty unfair, life. I hope you both weather it fine. Some people seem to experience almost no symptoms; I hope that is the case here. Maybe she only got hit with a small viral load given how safe she has been... in which case hopefully her body is able to defend and create antibodies. Would be curious to hear how things evolve for you, if you’re willing and able to share. Good luck.
divbzero 6y ago
Wishing the best for you and your fiancée. It sounds like she’s okay for now and hoping it’s just a quarantine and things will be back to “normal” for you.
asadkn 6y ago
Thanks for sharing the story. Just something interesting you might want to read into. False positives can be much higher than 0.5-4% figures, depending on how you look at it. Out of the positive results, about 13% [1] and 25% [2] were false. In [2] 400 out of 1570 positives would be false. I have seen as high as 40% being false in other publications. [1] https://www.aacc.org/science-and-research/scientific-shorts/2020/false-positive-results-in-real-time-reverse-transcription-polymeras https://www.aacc.org/science-and-research/scientific-shorts/... [2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895843/S0519_Impact_of_false_positives_and_negatives.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...