(1) Personal preferences and you should have cleared that up BEFORE agreeing to lunch with that couple. This is going to go on for a while. He's clearly not alone in his stance if you had to wait over an hour for a table outdoors while there was plenty of available seating indoors.
(2) CDC is advisory, local jurisdictions have authority. You're going to LOVE CA if you don't want to wear a mask indoors or in businesses (before July 31, and depending on which part of the state)...don't like it? Shop, eat, visit elsewhere....
1. It's not 90 degrees where I'll be eating in California, so I'll have no issues eating outdoors in California. Whereas I would have preferred indoors in NYC on a weekend of near record breaking temps. Also, there was far more indoor seating than outdoor, so that may have had something to do with the wait.
1a. Also, for the record, I spent much of that hour+ driving around looking for parking (We were going to check in to the hotel and Uber, but my friend INSISTED that they were STARVING and they had to eat at 7 or we could just wait until tomorrow. and then we ended up eating after 8 anyway because, well I guess they weren't starving after all...so we had to drive straight there.)
So it was actually my introverted wife and daughter who were forced to make conversation with fully masked mumbly people they don't really know outdoors who were doing most of the bitching about the wait, and I'm simply backing them up.
2. If the outdoor seating is full, I don't have a problem with wearing a mask until I am seated at my table. That is what I've always done for indoor our outdoor.
3. Others in my family tend to prefer online shopping and we don't have the suitcase space to bring home much, so it's quite likely we won't be doing any shopping in California. But if we do, I already said that we all still choose to wear masks in stores. I simply said I think it's stupid at this point to require vaccinated people to do so.
