I don’t think you were misunderstood. It sounds like classic deflection by your new acquaintance. When they have guilt for things they believed, said and did during that time, they often talk about all the people who died of “covid”. We here know many were actually killed by hospital protocols/doctors/nurses and could have been saved with a variety of alternative treatments. But pulling the “death card” has a way of both silencing the other side and assuaging their own guilt. Some of them would say that if one less person caught covid and died because of your mask then, yes, it was worth treating you like a leper to force you/me to put one on.
I’m not saying your Long Island acquaintance is one of those people, but he didn’t rise to the occasion and admit that people who believe in the most basic human freedom of all - bodily autonomy - had an absolute right to it, even during that challenging time. Most of my friends are New Yorkers because of my leisure activities, and they’re a different bunch. Many are conservative, especially outside the NYC area, but the big city dweller’s version of conservatism may be very different than a Tennessean’s version. To me, it seems softer and squishier because of the influence from the hardcore liberals that populate and influence the area.
It was always “my body, my choice,” until it came to the masks and vaxes. Then that “choice” went right out the window - because it was *your* choice and not *their* choice.