I don't understand anti-vaxxers.

[Wicked Blue]

17. A friend of mine "doesn't trust" the vaccines

I told her I got my first shot a few weeks ago and didn't have any problems, but she still doesn't trust them. I was afraid to ask why. Does she think the doses include microchips? She's been brainwashed by Fox News for a long time so heaven knows what crazy stuff she believes.

We've been friends for more than 30 years, and we try to avoid discussing politics. But yesterday I got so exasperated with her on the phone that I wished I could shake some sense into her. Instead, I told her I didn't want to continue the conversation and ended it.

She had a mild case of COVID-19 last year, but doesn't feel COVID is a big problem overall. Nobody she knows has had it, and her husband didn't catch it from her, so to her, that proves it's no big deal. I kept asking her - a half million people have died, and that's not a problem?

They moved to Florida a year ago to live near her best friend since elementary school. I fear her friend shares her loony ideas and they reinforce each other. And her husband is even more into right-wing nuttery.

Now that she's in Florida, she says she feels "free." Hardly anyone she sees in Florida wears a mask. She claims she can't breathe while wearing a mask because she has COPD. Now she has a doctor's note excusing her from wearing one. So does her friend. If she goes someplace where a mask is absolutely required, she wears a face shield, but I can't imagine that that would offer any real protection to herself or others.

Florida, she said, has freedom, in the sense that very few places are closed and people are maskless and COVID doesn't seem to be a big concern. They can go to restaurants. She is delusional, and I have no way to try talking sense to her. I hope she and her husband don't end up catching one of the new variants.

I sometimes toy with ending the friendship, but we've known each other more than 30 years, since we and our kids met at YWCA swim classes. We went to their kids' bar and bat mitzvahs, they came to our daughter's wedding, and so on. And she has many good qualities. Among other things they adopt quite a few rescue dogs and work with them to overcome their fears and traumas, and give them good lives.