# Anti-social distancing **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 28, 2020, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476 "2020-03-28T01:16:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/41 "2020-03-28T18:30:10Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Yeah, well, I say down with home rible assholes, whatever they are. Well, rible assholes used to be seen only in amusement arcades and movie theater lobbies, but with the current pandemic, the home versions are suddenly becoming very popular. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/42 "2020-03-28T22:25:37Z")
The subject line of this thread was also the title of this [Full Frontal Nerdity](http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=2068). Considering what happens in it, I think it’s an appropriate addition to this thread. (For those unfamiliar with FFN, it’s a webcomic.) ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/43 "2020-03-29T00:12:41Z")
I remember a scene, early in “The Stand” in which Gary Sinise is being quarantined by the government because he’s been exposed to the plague but seems immune. Workers in hazard suits come on to examine him, and he’s royally piseed of at how he’s being treated. So as they approach he coughs at them and laughs when they leap backwards. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/44 "2020-03-29T00:34:59Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > I remember a scene, early in “The Stand” in which Gary Sinise is being quarantined by the government because he’s been exposed to the plague but seems immune. Workers in hazard suits come on to examine him, and he’s royally piseed of at how he’s being treated. So as they approach he coughs at them and laughs when they leap backwards. That reminds me wasn’t one of the scientists or security guards so angry towards the end that Gary Sinise wasn’t infected that they tried to kill him pretty much cause they didn’t think he deserved to be immune? Seemed like something I could see happening in real life in such an event, because humans really are that messed up. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/45 "2020-03-29T00:51:26Z")
> [@Rich\_Mann](#): > > All the calls for ‘social distancing’ don’t seem to be working. Whenever I’m forced to go out to where other people are, at least one person gets unnecessarily close. > > So I have pioneered ‘anti-social distancing’. > > I fake a coughing fit. > > That backs them right the hell off! Jerk move. Jerkiest of moves, in fact. Suppose you are harboring the virus and don’t know it. Still think you’re clever? mmm ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/46 "2020-03-29T01:28:20Z")
> [@pool](#): > > That reminds me wasn’t one of the scientists or security guards so angry towards the end that Gary Sinise wasn’t infected that they tried to kill him pretty much cause they didn’t think he deserved to be immune? Seemed like something I could see happening in real life in such an event, because humans really are that messed up. I don’t remember that part, but it’s been a long time since I saw it, so I could have forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/47 "2020-03-29T02:43:32Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > I don’t remember that part, but it’s been a long time since I saw it, so I could have forgotten. I don’t know anything about those movies, but there was definitely a scene in the book when one of the last surviving scientists comes in to shut down the project (which had failed to produce a vaccine) by means of automatic pistol; it had nothing to do with what he “deserved”, he was just another lab animal/guinea pig to them. Earlier they had their agents release the plague in the capitals of Russia, China, the UK, etc., just as soon as it was clear the epidemic was uncontrollable, because obviously why not. (The rationale in the book was so that they could deny the plague came from the USA if it looked like it popped up everywhere at more or less the same time.) ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/48 "2020-03-29T06:47:04Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > Bonus points if you also pictured the scene being narrated by Sir David Attenborough. ("The two males have challenged each other for territory, and neither is willing to back down. Although the chances that either one will mate successfully this season are slim, they continue the threat display … ") You made me laugh so hard, I can’t really type because I am still laughing. Such a good feeling, thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/49 "2020-03-29T11:50:10Z")
> [@Rich\_Mann](#): > > Coughing is not illegal. Doing things that may be legal in some situations does not mean they are legal in all situations. Firing a gun, for example. Shouting “fire.” Coughing in a crowded place in the middle of a pandemic. As bad as it is for people to crowd each other right now, trying to frighten people with serious illness is a seriously fucked up idea. It isn’t funny, it is psychopathic. ---
**Author:** ![moes\_lotion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@moes\_lotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moes_lotion)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2020, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/50 "2020-03-31T02:39:07Z")
I was grocery shopping a couple of weeks age just as the Canadian government started the social messaging message. Store employees were making sure we were all appropriately spaced in the check-out lines, about a minute after I’d joined the end of the line I accidentally inhaled a bit of saliva, resulting in a coughing fit. Everyone ahead of me turned and glared, even though I was both coughing into my elbow and simultaneously trying to mime “not infected”… ---
**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2020, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/51 "2020-03-31T20:25:30Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > So, sometimes you just have to anti-socially undistance and bolger your way right in there, Never heard of “to bolger”. What’s that? (I looked it up, but only found some proper names and a dodgy Urban Dictionary listing that doesn’t fit.) ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/52 "2020-03-31T20:58:48Z")
> [@Hatchie](#): > > Never heard of “to bolger”. What’s that? (I looked it up, but only found some proper names and a dodgy Urban Dictionary listing that doesn’t fit.) To move like a scarecrow? Mostly kidding, but could be tied to Ray . . . ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2020, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/53 "2020-03-31T22:28:13Z")
> [@Hatchie](#): > > Never heard of “to bolger”. What’s that? (I looked it up, but only found some proper names and a dodgy Urban Dictionary listing that doesn’t fit.) Might be a typo for [bulger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_Bulger)–a pretty unsocial way to act. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2020, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/54 "2020-04-01T16:13:50Z")
[Missouri man charged for coughing at customers](https://apnews.com/a53b578aafda255495e3f967c2080623). > [@](#): > > CUBA, Missouri — An eastern Missouri man has been charged with making a terrorist threat after he allegedly coughed toward customers and wrote COVID on a cooler at a Dollar Tree store. > > John Swaller of Cuba was charged Tuesday and was being held on $25,000 bail in the Crawford County jail. > > An employee of a the store called police because the 33-year-old man was intentionally coughing toward customers and had breathed on a cooler before writing COVID on the inside of the cooler. > > The store was closed and sanitized. Cuba is about 80 miles southwest of St. Louis. > > Swaller’s father told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch his son does not have COVID-19. Police still used protective gear to transport Swaller to jail. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/55 "2020-04-01T17:16:56Z")
I guess the OP wanted one thread leading nowhere, just for show. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/56 "2020-04-02T22:07:34Z")
Yeah if I took random people on the internet seriously I’d think fake coughing (when nobody even if they feel fine can be 100% sure they aren’t infected) was pretty screwed up. As far as scaring people, that wouldn’t be good either, although the people who are highly stressed out by this probably aren’t the same ones walking right down the middle of narrow sidewalks even after I go all the way to one side. I suppose there could be other people in earshot who’d freak out. Anyway I wouldn’t do it…but again wouldn’t necessarily assume people are serious on the internet. I do shake my head a bit (internally so to speak) at those right down the middle of the sidewalk people though. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/57 "2020-04-04T17:19:49Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > [Missouri man charged for coughing at customers](https://apnews.com/a53b578aafda255495e3f967c2080623). [Las Vegas man picked up three felony charges related to pretending to have the virus.](https://www.fox5vegas.com/coronavirus/las-vegas-man-arrested-for-coronavirus-prank-in-walmart-apologizes/article_813b7b1c-74a5-11ea-a145-4f224a6feef2.html) ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/58 "2020-04-08T22:09:44Z")
[US charges 2 with terror crimes over threats to spread virus](https://apnews.com/6900cd336520d54a963e000a54720ec3). ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2020, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/59 "2020-04-14T13:43:04Z")
I need a T-shirt (or a face mask) with screen-printed words: I’m not sick! It’s spring and I have allergies! ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2020, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476/60 "2020-04-16T06:12:10Z")
I want a facemask made to look like I just sneezed and there is goo dripping out of it. Maybe I can make convincing-looking goo with rubber cement. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-social-distancing/850476.md?page=4)