We all look at things through filters. We all have different filters. We get our filters from our past experience, from our expectations, from those around us, from society. Very often we have no idea what those filters are until they come to our attention, but that doesn’t usually happen until we have already made a judgement based on the original filters.

We are in the middle of a pandemic. Everything is different, and everything is now filtered through an additional set of pandemic filters.

Is that person following the local/national laws & guidelines?
Is that person behaving safely?
Is that person behaving less or more safely than I am?

Just before the last one is where the filter kicks in and we are no longer pretending to analyse facts but instead are freely casting judgement.

A friend recently told me that they were going to go to “have a few beers and play board games with friends”.

Visiting friends, in their own home was within the local and national guidelines.
My friend is over 18 therefore is old enough to drink beer.
Board games are a standard adult activity.
My friend had already mentioned their hand washing and use of hand sanitiser,

That meant that according to their report they were following local & national laws and guidelines and behaving safely.

Cue the filter!

With a pandemic filter firmly in place “beers, board games & friends” = “house party” = “super spreader event”

Then I freewheeled into judgement. My friend was behaving less safely than I was. They were going to a house party and I decided not to comment because it’s a pandemic and I was busy filing them under “let’s not keep company until there is a vaccine” because I am safe, and they are not.

I didn’t stop to ask. I didn’t ask for more information. I didn’t ask for details. I didn’t inquire after names, or a location, or the intended games.

I judged, and then I based everything after that on that judgement.

I have done this with The Boy. I haven’t done it very much in the last few years, but I have done it. I have judged him based on ideas I already had.

If I had stopped and asked my friend those questions I would have discovered that they were having a Chinese take away with a 2 adult + 2 child family and would be playing UNO.

So instead of a house party, my friend went to a family gathering and I had to dig myself out of the judgemental hole I had planted myself in.