Increasingly hate sitting next to people

I am like @ilovesooty . Hardly ill, right down to one big bout of covid but fought that off in a week. My team at work are falling like flies all the time.

I haven’t had a cold for ages so mine is more like @ilovesooty
However these people have had a cold and are now better. I wouldn’t give up t(e fun bits of my life to avoid a head cold here or there.

You must be very lucky. That was never my experience, and nearly everyone I work with (remotely!) is currently full of a cold or has been within the last fortnight.

I’d say that’s really unusual levels of illness which I’d want investigated. I was a teacher, so spent the winter locked up with hundreds of teenagers. Rare for me or anyone else to have more than 2 cough/cold/chest episodes a year. It’s impacted your life and is stopping you living in what most would call a normal way (regardless of whether you really want to or not - you can’t, is the point). It needs dealing with.
It’s not ‘a couple of hours’ is it? Most weeks I do 2 hours with a concert band, 2 with a choir, a coffee or two with friends. Monthly(ish) restaurant and theatre visits, shopping, visiting interesting places…

I do mix with other people. I go to the gym several times a week. I travel on trains. I go to theatres and concerts. I sit in crowds at football matches. I attend conferences. Apart from one not very serious case of covid I haven't had so much as a cold for at least eight years. There's something going on with someone who gets so ill every year from normal social contact.

I don't think I have any particular immune issues. I used to commute on a train and work in an office. I, and pretty much everyone around me, used to be coughing and sneezing from September through to April. Every cold turned into a cough which lasted weeks. Did go to the GP for a few particularly long lasting ones and they just said it was "post viral cough". Would never fully recover from one before the next one arrived. Just a thoroughly unpleasant way to spend months of every year. And really not worth it for the sake of a couple of hours in a theatre or restaurant here and there.

I guess we are all different. A life without theatre, or meals out, or visiting new places, or laughing round a table with friends doesn’t seem like a life to me. Are you receiving treatment for your immune issues? Not a PA comment - if you were that ill from minimal contact with people it’s not right.

I think the wording has been exaggerated slightly here - the messaging wasn't that people were "dirty" or "dangerous". But they do spread diseases, of varying severities. The lived experience/revelation of lockdown was that by not mixing with other people I didn't get ill at all, with anything for a whole year. It was wonderful, I felt wonderful, I was actually able to function happily throughout the winter, rather than dragging myself through it in a haze of Vicks and paracetamol, as in all previous years. And I realised that I didn't actually miss any of the things that required close proximity to other people, so why revert to the previous status quo?
Everything in life is a trade off. Some things are unavoidable. But where there is a choice, one has to decide if the benefits outweigh the costs. There are very few things that I can think of that I would actually want/choose to do, which require being in close proximity to other people. So on balance, life has improved now that in-person interactions are kept to a minimum. Other people may see the trade off differently. I wasn't previously a particularly sociable person anyway - I never went on holidays or out with friends or anything like that, so perhaps less of a lifestyle change than one may imagine. The only main changes were working from home instead of in an office, (so also no train commute and no eating lunch with work colleagues) and no theatre trips. And consequently much less of the year spent ill.

Well yes, that's what happens when you have a variety of people on a big forum. It's unlikely to be the same people saying those two things. MN isn't a hive mind.

I didn’t get the message that other people are dirty and dangerous and will make you sick during covid though. I understood that there was a novel virus my body didn’t know how to fight and for which there wasn’t a good treatment (for most of it) so I should avoid catching it or passing it on. The way to do that was to stay away from people. I never thought the people were dirty (odd) or dangerous or making me sick. It was covid. Which we can now treat better and I against which I have some immunity.

I meant I agreed with what you said there. It's about caring and decency. I just think someone who's inspired by lockdown to shun humanity is strange and that mindset to me is disturbing.

I'd agree with there. I don't think what I said was inconsistent with that.

I was responding to the comment You’re as likely to catch something off a friend as a stranger. which isn't true because of the relationship with your friend. (And anyway, you're unlikely to be friends with someone with poor personal hygiene, or who has other antisocial habits etc).

I travel by train and tube every week at rush hour. Most people are commuters so seats get but people don't sit together on quieter carriage. That's mostly strangers though. I actually like sitting next to friends and family.

I think there's a world of difference between someone looking after the welfare of someone undergoing cancer treatment and someone who weirdly thinks lockdown restrictions were an inspiration in how to live. The first is absolutely understandable. The second is strange and concerning.

My OH has cancer, so we "shield" as much as possible as chemotherapy has knackered his immune system. Our friends and family respect us enough to tell us if they think they've got something and wouldn't dream of turning up at our house coughing and sneezing. So, no, I don't think you are a likely to catch something from a friend, as a real friend would understand and respect you.

@CrazyGoatLady

I did prefer it, personally, when we had more personal space during social distancing, but I also realise it's not realistic to maintain that, society wouldn't function. Total isolation or misanthropy isn't healthy, but people do have different needs with regards to socialising and being around others. I can see why people have had a hard time readjusting to being in close proximity to others after two years of being told other people are dirty and dangerous and will make you sick.

It's good to have choice. If you don't want to sit touching random strangers in a theatre for 3 hours, then you're free not to go, likewise with shopping, your choice whether to go at busy times or shop at quiet times or get shopping delivered.

Trouble is with things like GP surgeries, hospitals, dental surgeries, pharmacies, etc., you've no choice but to go, and they're usually cramped, lacking in ventilation, etc. That kind of place should provide more spacious and better ventilated areas, especially as there are more likely to be elderly, disabled or have poor immune systems. We really should have learned from Covid and be transitioning to medical settings with safer environments for potentially vulnerable people. I know you can't radically remodel older buildings, but even new buildings aren't being designed with better waiting areas, even those designed and built in the last couple of years. Really stupid. No wonder there are so many hospital acquired infections etc.

I don't think they are the same people though!

Yes, I try to avoid people as much as possible, whether I know them or not.

But the contents of people’s lungs that you do know are absolutely fine? And your lungs are no danger to anyone else? You’re as likely to catch something off a friend as a stranger.

I'd actually be really worried about the welfare of children receiving the message from their parents that other people make you sick and who were subjected to a deliberately isolated life.

Mumsnet - "euuwww people are gross I don't want to be anywhere near them!!!!"

Also Mumsnet "why don't I have any friends, I am so lonely"

It is a shame that society couldn't continue to function like that. The year of lockdown, levels of flu and other contagious respiratory illness dropped down to almost nothing. It was the first time for decades when I wasn't ill with back to back viruses for 6 months of the year. Quite a revelation.
The messaging from the NHS wasn't fictional. Other people will indeed make you sick - humans are essentially vectors of disease.

Well, if we needed any evidence this wasn’t healthy, Mn, with its disproportionate number of corrosively lonely posters, testifies to it.

For me, it's the knowledge that I am breathing in whatever they have just breathed out. Air may look like ' just air' but it's really not - it contains all kinds of microscopic particles and gunk, and I don't want the contents of some random person's lungs in mine. If it weren't true, there would be no such thing as airborne diseases for a start.

So many more people think like this after all the messaging through COVID. I can't really blame people for feeling this way because the government, NHS etc did their best to make people terrified to be near each other!

Humans are social creatures. Isolating yourself isn’t healthy.

I did prefer it, personally, when we had more personal space during social distancing, but I also realise it's not realistic to maintain that, society wouldn't function. Total isolation or misanthropy isn't healthy, but people do have different needs with regards to socialising and being around others. I can see why people have had a hard time readjusting to being in close proximity to others after two years of being told other people are dirty and dangerous and will make you sick.