To set the stage: I didn't really reckon with the difficulty of finding romantic partners when I moved to a small town last fall. I had social networks of many years standing in Bloomington, and it will take a long time to build new ones here. Those who are ignorant about gay life might be surprised to know that there are significant numbers of gay and bisexual men in and around a town of about 10,000 people; the difficult part is finding them. So I've started exploring social media -- Grindr, if you must know, which I had never used until last month. I haven't had much luck meeting partners yet, but it has been interesting, and I've been collecting material for a snarky/despairing post on my experience and observations so far.
The rising COVID-19 crisis threw a monkey wrench into my fine plans, however. When I began hearing about self-isolation and social distancing, it occurred to me that sexual behavior was going to be affected, though I didn't see much about it at first. But eventually I found information that confirmed my forebodings: an air- and contact-vectored virus could be spread by sexual contact. Not directly through copulation as far as we know so far, but through saliva exchange and the shared breathing that intimate closeness - even just cuddling - involves. Since I'm almost 70 years old, with diabetes and high blood pressure, I'm one of those vulnerable elders we've been hearing about. I have better things to do than die, so I realized I was going to have to back off.
I'd been slowly negotiating to meet a local man since last week, when I still thought I could go on being sexually active. I didn't hear from him for several days, and then last night he sent me a message moving the negotiations forward. I explained that I was going to practice social distance for the foreseeable future. I'm not sure what I expected, but his reply surprised me:
Um u really worried about that. Man and people wonder why I don't have much faith in the human race as a whole. I would explain why u shouldn't give it and concern and give u reading recommendations if my word wasn't sufficient enough. But I've learned that people just follow the herd as long as there sot is comfortable and shields them from having to think for themselves.I think the first sentence is supposed to be a question. My initial reply was that people wonder why I don't have much faith in the human race as a whole, a backhanded putdown of him that I don't think registered; and that I remember similar dismissive talk from the 80s. I wasn't interested in debating him via chat on Grindr, so I only added thanks to him for giving me an idea for a blog post. It's my life and health, not his, and the word of a semi-literate person I know only through online chat is not "sufficient enough."
But u do what u believe is best everyone should be vigilant and there's no such thing as too safe. Woot
Then, as I reflected, I realized that if I were going to follow the herd, I'd first have to decide which herd to follow. We have the doctors and public health experts and the shortage of basic medical equipment and the near-total absence of tests for the virus in the US; but we also have the Trump administration denying that there is any problem, that COVID-19 is just like the flu, and we have crowds flocking to crowded bars and restaurants and Florida beaches for spring break, and elderly people going to their bingo games and book groups and Bob Evans, and various prominent dimwits declaring that they're going to stand up to the virus and not let it win, to eat wherever they like because this is America. We have test kits mysteriously becoming available for entire sports teams and various celebrities, but not for frontline healthcare workers. So which position is bold independent thought and which is just following the herd?
Later today, after I began this post, the latter positions were undercut as Trump suddenly turned on a dime and began to treat the situation seriously. I haven't asked my online buddy what he thinks about that. After all, he himself seems to have flipflopped between the first and second paragraphs of his lecture to me -- unless that second paragraph is sarcastic, which seems likely to me. I can't claim to think totally for myself; I'm not credulous about experts, and even the experts are struggling to make sense of the scattered data available to them. As a non-expert I'm not in a position to come up with my own data. But I had largely reached my own decision to close in over the weekend, before the official response had reached critical mass. Not just for my own sake, but for solidarity with others, supporting my local businesses and public institutions. I don't like it, but I also know how lucky I am: I'm retired with adequate pension income and health coverage, I have no responsibilities to pull me out of my home into riskier environments, and my town so far seems to be untouched by the coronavirus. But no one knows for sure, because we don't have enough tests.
And that guy? It's academic, because I can't foresee when I can go back into circulation, but after further chatting with him on other topics, I don't think I want to be in the same room with him.
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Image credit: via Daniel Larison - I don't know where he found it.
