A Boston Globe story went viral recently for chronicling the uproar at Last Ditch, a lesbian bar in Western Massachusetts, after it made masks optional on Saturday nights – in 2026.

It's easy to laugh off one small-town bar's mask rules. But the eternal masking movement reveals something about how the COVID-19 pandemic changed Americans.

We've become more risk averse since the pandemic, and it's holding back our social and economic lives. Americans, especially young people, need to take more risks in pursuit of their own happiness.

COVID-19 pandemic fueled risk aversion

A progressive bar loosening its mask rules over its patrons' objections shouldn't have been national news. Americans latched onto the story not just because it was ridiculous but also because of what it revealed about the people in it.

The pandemic made Americans more cautious. For most healthy, younger people, COVID-19 posed little risk of severe illness, yet even as that evidence mounted, many Americans didn't adjust. Public policy was partly to blame, but a deeper cultural shift was underway.

Many of these trends predate COVID-19, driven by the rise of online alternatives to real-world socializing. Young adults' weekly time with friends nearly halved between 2010 and 2019. Dating apps spare........

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