I went to my dentist yesterday to get my teeth checked for the first time since before the pandemic. I had a few issues Ineeded to take care of back then, but just as I was about to make an appointment, the pandemic hit. Then, life hit. Then, inertia hit. Now, my tooth hit. So, here we are.
I love my dentist. She is great! The dental hygienists are great! The receptionist, who is the dentist’s husband is…not great. He is an aged hippie who has an amalgamation of out-there ideas. One of the reasons I had not gone back in a timely fashion is because he likes to vomit a bunch of these opinions at me.
In fifteen minutes, he told me that COVID was overblown by the government, that people died every day, anyway (including from the flu and SARS), that doctors should not hand out drugs so much, but recommend essential oils because they worked for him. He had a headache? He put essential oil on his forehead and the headache was gone! He didn’t trust doctors, but if he broke his leg, he would go to a doctor.
People were good and he would join in an uprising to make life better for everyone, but people were also deadbeats who no longer wanted to work. They had a position for hygienist that paid good money, and they could not get enough good applicants. Also, one of their hygienists quit at the beginning of the pandemic because she had a baby at home and did not feel safe. He made fun of her concerns in a way I found appalling. In general, his attitude towards COVID was distasteful.
I pushed back when I felt the need to speak up (like I don’t think COVID was ‘overblown’ and I’m allergic to everything so essential oils were not for me. I also said I believed in doctors, which I truly do. Not that they are always right, but that they have specific knowledge in subjects and are, you know, healing people). Like, I’m alive because of them, but it was exhausting. He would not stop talking to me, and I marveled in the back of my mind how he had no qualms about pushing his quackery on me.
Yet, when I said that people weren’t good, he protested and was shocked. Even after all his complaining, he wanted to believe that he believed in the goodness of people. Whereas I did not. I said I didn’t think people were good or bad–they just were people. A combination of good and bad.
But, my god. Give me the confidence of a mediocre white man. Let me add cis het to that. He had absolutely no qualms about spouting all this stuff at me, and my pushback did not deter him in the laast. K pointed out to me that most hippies were wealthy white dudes who could afford to ‘drop out’ of society. Which is true .
This guy talked a big game about how he would be a part of the revolution to help others have better lives. I could barely contain a huge sigh becasue it was such bullshit. There was nothing stopping him from doing it (or any kind of activism), but he wasn’t as far as I could tell.