Post-pandemic movie-going

I went to the movies for the first time in a while a couple of weeks ago to see Shang Chi.
The movie was good--I love Kung Fu movies--but this won’t really be about the movie itself.
This will be more about the post-pandemic movie-going experience.
Look, I get it, we have all been cooped up in our houses avoiding social interactions--I understand that.
But, we all have to realize when we go to theaters or anywhere, for that matter, that there are OTHER PEOPLE THERE WITH YOU.
Nobody in the theaters that I’ve been in since COVID reared its ugly head has been able to act civilized.
The post-pandemic theater experience is a nightmare-scape full of loud, obnoxious talking or “whispering” (I put whispering in quotations because, well, y’all it definitely ain’t quiet enough to call it that).
It’s full of people sitting on their incredibly bright phones in the middle of the movie--something that is absolutely abhorrent--as if nobody can see it happening.
Listen to me, hear my voice through these words you are reading: Do NOT go to a movie theater if you are not ready to act right in that setting.
I love watching movies in a theater, it’s my favorite thing to do.
I’ve written several articles about the pseudo-sanctity of the theater-going experience--which certainly caused a bit of eye-rolling of my former editor Les Walters.
It is an important experience to me and others like me, so please, be considerate to those around you.
Don’t laugh as loud as you would at home, don’t spend the entire film sitting on your phone checking texts and scrolling on Twitter.
If you want to do those things, stay at home, stream it on whatever app you use and leave the movie-going to those who didn’t forget how to act during the pandemic.
In all seriousness, I was rather guilty of the very things I’m complaining about.
Going back into the theater after I had spent MONTHS watching movies from my couch definitely took some adjusting.
I must have looked at my phone a dozen times with my brightness all the way up like I would at home before catching myself.
I guess the last thing I expected to be majorly affected by the pandemic was the experience in the theater.
But, alas, here we are. Causing minor offenses to those around us all because we forgot that we have to act differently when we leave our homes.
Thanks, COVID.