What masking in Texas is like

A lot of people gave me that “whoa, okay” look when I said I was coming down to Texas, so I thought you’d be interested in what the mask situation is like.

Essentially: most business still require masks, which means most indoor experiences here are as masked up as California is. The big difference is restaurants. I have so far been to about six restaurants with indoor seating, and out of those, only one required a mask at the door between getting your table and sitting down to eat. I still felt safe as I’m vaccinated and I had some distance (and there was good ventilation, or I was on a patio/outdoor area). But it is kind of jarring to enter any kind of business passing people with no masks.

The other big difference is that even in the businesses and other common areas I’ve walked around where people are masked, I get almost no sense that anyone is asking anyone to put a mask in if they don’t have it. The percentage of people that don’t wear them is much higher.

The only real concern I had was walking into a Circle K the first night I was here. There was no mask restriction on the front door, but I put mine on because I thought, “the employee here will probably appreciate it if I put it on” and then I walked in and she didn’t have one on, nor did the other three customers in the store. Actually, I started to feel weird that I was wearing it at that point.

And it’s made me think about behaviors and practices and how so much of what we do is just mostly influenced by what the people around us do. As Seth Godin would say, “people like us do things like this”. I think we’re always positioning ourselves relative to the 1000 people closest to us… “I’m safer than they are” or “I believe in science more/less than they do”… but change contexts like going from California to Texas and your behavior might seem overly cautious or wildly dangerous.

Another point of culture: most of the restaurants I’ve gone to have QR codes at the table to look at their menu. I imagine it’s that same thing… one place is doing it so another one does it and so on. It’s like how every Texas restaurant offers you a to-go cup for your soda and pretty much none of them do in California. (Also: in Fort Worth at least every place seems to use the same thin black straws… why? Who is the supplier here controlling Big Straw?)

So all in all I’d say that people here wear masks more than you think they do but probably not as much as you would like. But I haven’t felt endangered really. But also, I didn’t go to the Texas Rangers game last night. Last week on social media I wrote that because it’s safer to be outdoors, I didn’t think the Rangers games would be super spreader events because they have a lot of free flowing air.

And then last night they closed the roof so the entire game was “indoors”. Whoof.

Finally, I just had moist brisket at Rudy’s (pictured above) and it was amazing. I hope you have a great weekend.