they'd like for you to think so
>>40504953i believe this is true, probably, which ironically might make it "contagious" in the way that, like, learning what your dental cavity is and that you could go get it drilled and cleaned and filled is contagious; something is super clearly wrong and you know it's wrong and it sucks and you hate it but if you don't know about dentistry you'll probably compartmentalize and suffer in silence. but then you learn that everyone else has normal, unpainful teeth except, like, they don't know about dentistry either. nobody's ever heard of this thing and so they don't tell you about it and you all go around acting like it's a darn shame that you're sad but, like, what are you gonna do about it? but then someone mentions something to you about having their tooth fixed, by some guy who can just do that. fix your teeth. and all you can think about is how everything would be so much better if you could just talk to this guy and have him fix your fucked-up tooth. that's how it was for me, anyways. although i learned about dentistry when i was twelvish so the puberty probably also made it way worse.