Heya. Person-who-doesn’t-wear a-mask-all-the-time here. I have asthma and yes, while masking is fine some days, sometimes I literally can’t breath with layers of cloth over my face. I have other reasons for believing masking should be an individual choice (other personal health reasons as well as views) but that’s neither here nor there. I wear it sometimes but there are many times it’s not feasible. Am I a bad person in your eyes? Should I shut myself in and never go to the grocery store?

I’m not saying there aren’t people out there who are assholes about it but you never know someone’s intent unless you ask them. And if you have already made up your mind about them it will be hard to truly take in their perspective. There’s a saying “be kind for everyone you know if fighting a hard battle.”

It would, for example, be unreasonable to assume that you, an internet stranger, are dumb, arrogant, or brainwashed. I don’t know you. I don’t know your background. I haven’t seen what you’ve seen. I can’t feel your emotions. But that’s kind of the point. Every time you make what appears to be a simple decision it’s really the result of your history, education, social class, intellect, emotions, fears, etc. When you make a “simple decision” that someone else judges, you have that background information. You understand your why. But when we see someone else do something we disapprove of, all we see is the action. We miss out on the context and instead we judge them as if they had had the information, History, and feelings we have. And that means we hold them to an impossible standard: their single action has to measure up against the rubric of our lives. It’s unfair.

Also I do have to add just for the record, I have quite literally intervened in multiple knife fights, physical assaults, and verbal attacks. So your assertion that the people not in masks would just stand by and do nothing in a crisis is based on nothing more than your internal biases. Granted I’m only one person but I’m willing to bet there are others with similar stories. In my case, I had some training from a prior job that sort of made intervening second nature. Those skills can be taught. And in each of these occurrences, the people I helped were strangers.

Dude, I’m sorry this is a long reply, people on Reddit seem not to like that. But from where I’m standing, it seems like you have some serious negative feelings towards those without masks and those feelings are likely only hurting you.