‘Virtuous Hypochondria’: How One Man Lost A ‘Friend’ Of 20 Years…

 
By Eric Peters

I parted ways yesterday with a friend of more than 20 years’ standing over his sickness – and my refusal to indulge it or even pretend to ignore it.

This ex-friend says I should don the Holy Rag because “I might be asymptomatic” and because I ought to “show a little respect for your fellow man” and that “It’s not all about you.” He added:

“Grow your own food and you don’t need to interact with people. But if you want the benefits of society you have to participate and conform a bit.”

Italics added.

So I said good-bye.

I “have to conform a bit”? I am obliged to literally show that I (supposedly) agree with the outrageous assertion that I might be sick – i.e., “asymptomatic” – and so present an ongoing, never-ending threat to other people that requires me to wear a Face Diaper – the religious vestment of the Sickness Cult – to assuage their fears?

I attempted to reason with this friend.

It was like attempting to discuss Euclid with a rooster.

“I’m not sick,” I texted him.

“I’ve had two friends die from it,” he texted back. “And several still sick.”

Me: “Well, I’m not sick. Therefore, I cannot transmit sickness. Therefore, wearing a rag over my face serves no medical purpose.”

Him: “You might be asymptomatic.”

Me: “Okay, so you are saying that the possibility I might be sick – even though I’m not coughing or sneezing or manifesting any symptoms of sickness and so there is no evidentiary/specific reason to suppose I am in fact sick, much less contagious – obligates me to act as if I am in fact sick and contagious and to literally put on something as a ‘protective’ measure, just in case and to ease your fears?”

“In that case, why shouldn’t you be obliged to turn in your guns (my ex-friend likes guns) since many people are quite terrified of them and fear you might use them to harm them or someone they care about?”

“If my fear that you might be – or do – some thing is enough to impose an obligation on you, then how do you feel about being made to wear an armband or similar highly visible item indicating that you are gay (my ex-friend is homosexual) and thus a potential transmitter of AIDS?”

“The fact is you could possibly transmit AIDs. You might spit on me. You might rape someone. These are just as possible as ‘you might be asymptomatic’ ”…

He didn’t like that much – and that was the end of the texting and the friendship.

I do not mourn the loss.

Because I understand this person is not and may never have been my friend. A friend doesn’t threaten violence nor countenance its threat. Yet that is precisely what my ex-friend advocates – in a mewling, gas-lighting way – when he urges me to “wear a mask” to “show a little respect for (my) fellow man” and then says I am obliged to “conform a little bit.”

He means obey. And not merely obey.

I must agree.

I must show that I agree . . . by wearing a visible accoutrement of agreement.

 
Like the wearing of an armband, in another time.

To not wear the armband then – or the Holy Rag now – is to give visual evidence of non-agreement and that is what these creeps cannot stand.

Not that we are “asymptomatic” and might be plague carriers but that we disagree with them. That we do not share their virtuous hypochondria and by showing that we do not share it show contempt for it.

My now-ex-friend supports my being made to “conform a little bit” – and you, too. They will cheer when we are hounded by the Gesundheitpolizei for not wearing the Holy Rag and – soon – refusing to allow ourselves to be injected with god-knows-what. They will support our being excommunicated from life – not allowed to transact business, buy food.

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