I’ve always been

somewhat triggered by passive aggression. It’s the theme of COVID-19. I find myself slipping into it as the days get longer and the opportunities for fun disappear. Passive aggression is defined by www.verywellmind.com as behaviours that "involve acting indirectly aggressive rather than directly aggressive.” Procrastination is a common form of passive aggression -- i.e. you’re mad as hell but instead of yelling, you become a kind of impossible roadblock for all further action by simply doing nothing. COVID-19, I would argue, has made us all passive aggressive, because the disease itself is that way. Hardly anyone knows anyone who has died of COVID-19, and if we do they were either inexpressibly old, or inexpressibly ill, before they got it. And yet it is A Frightening Holocaust that has bought our lives to a full stop. By doing nothing, it has halted everything. And the official language of COVID-19 is passive aggression: 'I’m only pretending to be nice as I really I hate you for not wearing a mask.' Public communications about the illness are conducted in hushed religiosity with much false camaraderie and artificial sweetness. I had an afternoon of passive aggression today, at the gym. In my gym these days you have to stay six feet from each other and  disinfect the equipment before and after using. I took a momentary break from the the pec machine  (it was only a moment, I swear) and a woman started to work out on it. Ordinarily I would suggest we share; but that’s impossible under COVID-19. She was wearing gigantic headphones. I said, Excuse me. She did not hear me. I said, louder, Excuse me. She removed her headphones. I asked her if she would mind waiting until I was finished before working out on the machine. She said, I can’t hear you. I spoke louder. She said, again, I can’t hear you. Then I spoke very loudly indeed. She walked away. A couple of minutes later one of the trainers at the gym  asked me very politely -- of course -- if I would be willing to have a ‘chat’ with him before I left. I told him I was free now. Nonplussed, he said ‘I wanted to talk to you about  the incident that just happened. My instinct was to start screaming at him what incident? But I did not do that, thank God -- as I knew perfectly well what he was talking about -- and I also  knew that under the Unwritten Law of COVID-19 you are supposed to pretend you love everyone even though you hate them. So I asked him politely (back) what he was talking about, and he said. “You yelled at someone.” Now I was the nonplussed one. At first I denied yelling, and then inconveniently remembered that I had in fact yelled at this woman, basically because she asked me to. I explained that the woman  was, for whatever reason -- functionally, at least, partially deaf. He understood. We finished up billing and cooing  about how we all need be understanding because  these are difficult times ….blah blah blah. I could have killed him.  He's fat and ugly as hell -- and he’s an friggin' trainer. Why are fat people trainers? Could someone explain that to me? I thought they were supposed to make you feel inadequate. This guy  makes me feel very ‘adequate.’ And  I am sick and tired of pretending to be pleased to give up all the happiness in my life -- for going on a year now -- because I care so much more about other people than I do about myself. People do not care a jot about other people; they simply care about the joy of appearing noble as hell by pretending they do. This nightmare of passive aggression is not simply limited to isolated incidents at the gym; I feel it is taking over my life, creeping into my soul. At first I thought I was just depressed, but I could not possibly be depressed because I never get depressed. You know, for most of my life  — I don’t know what it is — I’ve basically been a happy person. I love what I do. I love my lover. I love my friends. I love sex. And I love life (not necessarily in that order) . But all of those things have been ground into the dust by the paralyzingly dull anti-reality of the nightmare normal— this monumental cloddish heaving pile of sadness that has been dumped over our heads. I have recently become obsessed with hating two of my fiends. They have not communicated with me in any way for weeks and (in one case) months. I don’t know what’s going on. Perhaps they are not my friends anymore.  After a few mysterious mentions of ‘mutations’ and variations’ they simply floated away. So my strategy is to ‘out-passive aggressive’ them. Instead of emailing them and saying -- what’s up? or better yet -- I miss you! or even better yet -- I’m really hurt! -- I have decided to play the old — I’m-just-going-to pretend-that-I don’t-want-to-see-you-more-than -you-don’t-want-to-see-me-game.  I hate myself. I’m being sucked down by the suffocating quicksand -- the foul-smelling hypocrisy that is COVID-19. Goodwill is the dreaded pillow hovering over my face, and I am Desdemona, only fit to flail; so gorgeous, and so persecuted. If anything has taught us how to be impeccable victims it is COVID-19. Of course I learned passive aggression a long time ago, at my mothers knee. Yes, she played the virtuous, virtual violin of her own helpless abjection better than Paganini. I spent my childhood tiptoeing around her vulnerability, which — oddly, for vulnerability — felt like a bomb that was going to explode at any moment. I don’t want to become permanently passive aggressive, but I’m starting to think — as Bette Midler once did, famously— ‘why bother’? COVID-19 has taught us that doing nothing has enormous power; that if we each just sit in our homes until we are rotten with regret, this will pay back the world for having the unmitigated gall to never live up to our expectations before, during, or after COVID-19.  Yes, there will be some demented solace in that. For what is the best revenge? Not living well, but doing nothing.