On Sunday a good friend of over 30 years asked for our advice . He and his wife know we are "concerned citizens" and they asked for our advice on what they should be doing in case there is "some sort of major problem". (Their term.)
It came a quite a shock as it is a subject we tend to steer clear of given our past experiences with them, they have always rolled their eyes and made jokes before when a difficult subject came up. After a couple of beers / wines the conversation flowed very easily and they admitted that it was the fear of looking silly that stopped them asking us before. We have already made another date to meet up and go into things in more detail, but we gave them plenty of simple 101 stuff to be getting on with until then.
On reflection, we reckon that more people than we realise might be in the same situation , eg; feeling somewhat uncomfortable and uneasy but scared of "coming out" so to speak.
Perhaps peoples natural survival instincts are coming forward given the global problems appearing on their screens and papers every day.
