Naw, it’s a real question. Some of us find masks a minor inconvenience, like shoes, and are seriously scratching our heads to see how INCREDIBLY STRONGLY many people seem to hate them.
My hate isn’t “incredibly strong,” but it’s greater than a minor inconvenience. Sure, 10 minutes in a grocery store is a minor inconvenience. A three hour MLB game, or all day in court or in the office, that would be very unpleasant. I wear one whenever it is required, expected, or requested. But I’m really ready to put mask wearing behind us. (for those that choose. I don’t care if others want to keep wearing masks).
I spent yesterday working indoors, in a office, where other people were working.
I wore a mask for eight hours. An N95 mask, not just a surgical mask, or a useless bandanna over my face. Not a big deal.
How much of your day do you spend in one? Do you talk through it most of the time? Are you often in a hot or humid space?
I think these things make a big difference.
I’m in the same boat. I’ll wear a mask whenever required or asked but I prefer not to. If I’m wearing glasses they fog up. Over time it makes my nose run. Certainly nothing worth storming the capitol but I’ll be glad when I can put them away.
People can get used to it. Coal miners wear a mask all day (or are supposed to). The servers at restaurants wear a mask during their shifts. I probably could get used to it too. However, it looks like I won’t have to. I’m fully vaccinated, and so are the people I live with and work with. Masks will probably be completely optional in Washington by the end of June.
Everybody isn’t you?
Some people find all the masks they’ve tried to be physically uncomfortable; especially if they’re not doing only minimal physically activity in a limited range of temperatures. Some people find masks to interfere with various portions of social contact, ranging from hearing and/or lipreading problems to difficulty judging/having others be able to judge expressions.
For me, ten or twenty minutes in a temperature-controlled store is a minor inconvenience. Five or six hours at a farmers’ market, some of it doing things requiring considerable physical exertion, sometimes in temperatures around freezing or in high humidity and high temperature, while also wearing glasses, and while having a heart condition causing shortness of breath: I can do that if I have to, but it is very much not fun.
I am too. But I don’t know if the people with whom I work are vaccinated or not. So I’m going to wear a mask indoors, at work. Because (a) I don’t want to pass COVID on to someone who isn’t vaccinated, and (b) I don’t want to get it (yes, vaccinated people can get COVID).
And, you know, I’m tired of all this hyper-individualistic stuff. We all have to live here.
I agree. We all have obligations to each other. Our firm enforced WFH and mask mandates for over a year. Most employees are still working from home. Those of us in the office are all fully vaccinated and all of us are comfortable with a more relaxed mask policy right now, which conforms to CDC guidelines.
Sure, any one (or all) of us might get COVID. I’ll take that chance. A vaccine is much better protection than a mask, which is all we had until recently.
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
–Emiliano Zapata
Agree, but also think vaccine + mask is even better! We went to a brewery last night; although we sat outside, I masked to go in for our refills. Someone saw me doing this and asked why I didn’t just get the vaccine. I told her I’m fully vaccinated and she looked puzzled. 
Seriously? Life is better than death. And wearing a mask isn’t exactly living on your knees.
Not completely serious, but there is an element of symbolism with mask wearing that I understand. Anyway, I think I’m sounding more anti-mask than I am. I’m in that kind of mood today I guess. I’ll leave it now with “for me, mask wearing was a moderate inconvenience and I’m glad we’ll be done with it soon.”
But the evidence is growing that the vaccine does 1)make it extraordinarily unlikely that you will get a serious case of COVID, let alone a life threatening one, and 2) make it extremely unlikely that you will pass it to someone else.
Again, willing to wear a mask to make others comfortable. But I think the evidence more and more suggests that an unmasked vaccinated person represents at most a negligible risk to themselves or others.
A few days ago I was in a situation where I had to wear a mask for 4 hours straight, the longest continuous period I’ve had to do so in months. I found that towards the end I was starting to find it hard to breathe. It felt like every inhalation was just the stale air I had just exhaled.
Just want to speak up for the mental health downsides of mask wearing. It is chilling and depressing to go out and not see friendly faces and smiles. Just a constant reminder of suffering and sadness.
Also, please don’t discount the claustrophobic feeling of wearing a mask some people have. Whether is or not, for some people it feels suffocating and cloying. None of these things is good for mental health.
I’m now supposed to feel sympathy for the people who have anxiety about unmasking. I don’t, because no one had any sympathy for me with my mask anxiety. I was called heartless and stupid and a “mask hole”. Reap what you sow.
Wow. When I’m out and everyone is masked it makes me feel great, like we are all working to deal with a problem that is surmountable. A constant reminder of strength through science.
You’re vaccinated so I don’t have any issues with any of that. Especially considering that you don’t care if I choose to wear one somewhat more than you do.
I don’t think I’m particularly unique in my ability to pick up on a smiling face that happens to be masked and I see plenty of them (and I assume they see the same from my smiling face that is also masked).
I’ve noticed that one effect the pandemic has had is to make a lot of us much more germ-wary. The pandemic suddenly forced us to realize that potentially fatal contagious illnesses can hit with little warning. Naturally some people will remain extremely cautious after that experience. The suddenness of the CDC’s lifting of the masking recommendation did little to alleviate those fears.
I’m OK, then, with vaccinated people continuing to mask even when experts agree it’s unnecessary. I’m not OK with them insisting other vaccinated people should do so. Wearing a mask when breathing hard during a gym workout isn’t easy. And as accustomed as I was to the mask, I’ve always noticed what a relief it was when I could safely remove it. I’ll wear one when the science says I should; I’ll trust that same science when it says I don’t need to. I’ll sympathize when others are reluctant.
I agree.
Usually, I stay home and don’t wear a mask. But I have plenty of mask-wearing hours under my belt.
My mother has been hospitalized three times during the pandemic, and I’ve spent several full days masked, in the hospital with her. Yes, I talk through it routinely.
I’m not often in hot humid spaces, and that is less pleasant. I went to a square dance the other night where I created my own heat and humidity, and wore my mask for a total about 4 hours, counting the car ride up and back with a friend. Yes, the interior of my mask was pretty damp.
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I suspect I have better, and better-fitting masks than a lot of people. I was an early adopter of masks, because it seemed really likely from the start that they would be helpful. I backed 4 different kickstarters, and the N90 mask I wore in hospital is one of the Kickstarter rewards. It’s not super comfortable, because it was designed for someone with a less prominent nose than I have, and the bridge of my nose was pretty sore after those full days in the hospital. But otherwise it’s pretty good. That’s also the one I wore to the dance.
(Two of the kickstarters leaked, although perhaps I could fix that if I didn’t have a better option. One of those makes my voice sound like Darth Vader, though, which seems unfortunate. The fourth Kickstarter is still trying to get its rewards out.)
I also bought a wide variety of cloth masks. I like the Starks Vacuum masks, and that’s what I wore for exercising outdoors. If I adjust it properly, my glasses don’t fog up. It’s perfectly comfortable to talk in. It’s pretty comfortable in general, imo. I also wear that when I visit my immune-compromised mother at her home. I spend most of my time talking when I visit her. She likes to hear me talk.
I also have a lot of surgical masks. I originally bought those when the first SARS hit the news, thinking it might become hard to obtain masks. I discovered that I am more comfortable in airplanes if I wear a mask than if I don’t (because the air is so damn dry) and I fly enough that I used up all of those, and was on my second case when covid hit the news. I’ve slept in those, talked with my family on the plane, and while they aren’t very nice when it’s hot and humid, I think they are completely comfortable when it’s cool and dry.
I realize that, and as I acknowledged above, perhaps I have obtained better masks than many people. I still find it puzzling how MUCH people object to masks. And how many people report that they find it hard to breath in a mask. I didn’t care for breathing through the cheap n95 mask I once bought to do some dusty work. But I’ve worn cloth masks for gardening (now that I have a stack of them lying around) not to protect me from disease, but to protect me from heavy pollen or very dry dirt. That is, I find it EASIER to breath with a mask in some real circumstances.
Ditto. I think eyes are generally more expressive than mouths. I’m surprised that all of a sudden people are upset about facial expressions when I’ve never heard anyone complain about large sunglasses. I’ve even talked to people who intentionally wear large sunglasses to hide their facial expressions, like, that’s a real thing. But I’ve never heard anyone complain about how they hate the summer because everyone is hiding their face.
Anyway, I smile at my neighbors when I see them on the street, masks and all. And they smile back. I have been assuming they can tell that I’m smiling.