Let’s bring back being quiet.
I get extremely extremely triggered whenever I hear the questions “how is your day going on a scale of 1-10?” or “what weather describes your mood today?”
The second anyone responds with anything besides “7” or “sunny,” you might as well remove me from class, admit me to a psych ward, and start writing my eulogy. I do not need you to tell me how bad your day is going. You’re only making mine 100 times worse. Please stop talking.
It’s hard to believe that I was not always this way. I used to be the one saying these excruciatingly unnecessary responses, and I hate myself for it.
Thankfully, I learned the hard way to stop talking when I noticed that half the class turned to look at each other whenever I started speaking. My bad. I didn’t know that nobody cared about the economic and political state of the world.
It took me until sophomore year to finally take the hint and realize that sometimes, the best answer is none. As I embarked on the journey to becoming an introvert, I also learned that every now and then, lying is the best way to go.
Think about it: simply lying about things like your grades or feelings can help avoid confrontations and make life so much less awkward. For example, if my mom asks me what I got on my math test, I lie and say I got a 87%, when I actually got a 47%.
Unfortunately for me (but mostly fortunately for everyone else), I took it a little too far. I conditioned myself to be so quiet that I now possess zero small talk capability and dread all interactions that require me to talk about myself without lying. So what did I do? I started lying about everything — and I mean everything.
I would rather lie about a major event in my life than talk about myself. My intestines could be spilling out on the side of the road, and if you asked me “are you okay?” I would still say yes unhesitatingly.
While I do not think you should take it as far as me, sometimes lying is worth losing your personality and not annoying others.
Have a nice and quiet day.
