Social Norms That I Wish Would Die A Painful Death
You ever notice that there are certain aspects of social interactions that just make no sense why we do it? I think about it all the time. The weird pointless stuff. The small talk that serves less about getting to know someone and more to do with filling the silence with your own voice. Here are some that I personally despise:
"What do you do for work?" : You don't care what I do for work, hell I don't even care for what I do for work. This question gets asked so much, what is so important about the most boring 8 hours of my life. It would be one thing if it was more asked as a followup question, not an icebreaker.
"How are you?" : Most of the time it's just a substitute for "hey". When someone asks you "how you doin'?", they're not asking an actual question to be answered. I think in other countries when this is said, you will get an honest answer and I think that needs to be more adopted universally
Calling people selfish for prioritizing their needs : I find it so weird when societies make it a virtue to suffer in silence and even pride yourself on how burnt out you are. There's nothing to be proud about destroying yourself slowly and not having a spine to stand up to authorities.
No clear relationship labels : When do we become friends? When do we become best friends? When do we go from dating to something more serious? It gets to a point where the line is just kinda vague and someone has to initialize it. Like introducing someone to a third party as your best friend, "this is my best friend X", and then it either blows up in your face or the other person is like "fuggit, we're best friends now I guess".
Thinking poor people are just lazy : People will often recognize that being rich doesn't necessarily make someone smart or that they work incredibly hard. So, why can't they apply the inverse? Some people just get fucked over by the system, but when a rich guy makes it they recognize the luck or even nepotism, but can't recognize the bad luck or the failure of a system?
Being on the phone ALL THE TIME : Seriously, can we just put the phone down? You can go 1 hour without a phone screen in your face can't you?
"Bye!","Cya","Bye","Bye" : I'm out after the 1st "bye", I don't need a second confirmation to end the conversation. It's an odd quirk that I've noticed more particularly with calls. It should just be "Bye","Cya",click and that be it.
"I have nothing to hide" : Yes you fucking do. We all do. You wouldn't want someone watching all your internet usage, you would find it creepy if they logged how much you engage with a certain aspect of the internet, following you to different sites, but you're cool with a corporation doing it? This one came from my discord guild, Ava made a good point when I brought it up mentioning that the people who leave these comments are also not the type to be effected by homophobia/transphobia/racism. When the law changes, you can become a target. You wouldn't want to live in a China-level surveillance state, so why let it happen in your home country?
Not saying what you mean - People will try and hint at what they want, and then get mad when you don't pick up on it. Just say what you mean and say it with your chest.
Using substitute words in place of swearing - "frick", "dang", "shoot" all used to substitute for saying "fuck", "damn", "shit". You know what they're trying to say, so why do we get butthurt when someone says the softball version instead of just saying the swear? It's all the same thing! Like sometimes I'll say "Jiminy Christmas" instead of "Jesus Christ" because I think it's funny, not to try and skirt around some odd rule where an assortment of letters turns something from offensive to inoffensive.
"We should hang out!", then never doing it - I think people like the idea of hanging out with people, but don't actually want to put in the effort to make it happen.
Pointlessly gendering toys/clothes/tools/everyday items : The pink tax and the gunmetal grey tax are very real. Why do we need hand wipes to be marketed specifically to men? Why is blue a "boy color" or pink a "girl color". This just furthered my annoyance with this because it seems even if you fall into the rule, people will still misgender your child. I could have my daughter in pink clothes with butterflies on it and people will still call her a he. WHAT'S THE POINT!?
Getting absolutely blasted drunk/high in social settings : Why? Do you want to enjoy your time or not? Being so drunk you black out or throw up fucking sucks. I know sometimes it'll happen by accident, hell I've thrown up from being too drunk too, but I wasn't trying to be. Some people genuinely try their hardest to be publicly shitfaced... REGULARLY! Why? Do you LIKE the taste of your own vomit?
Packing tutorials with filler : Seriously, I don't need an entire loredump or a philosophical dissection of a keylime pie. Just give me the fucking recipe
15 Not saying what you want in the first message : I get this at work every now and then. "Hey Pirate" Hey, what's up? "I have a question" .... okay what's your question "Can we connect over call?" I'm busy right now, what do you need? "It's in regards to [insert whatever task here]" SO WHAT DO YOU NEED!?!?! "[finally gets to the point]". Dude... just. tell. me. what. you. want. I've figured out if you just let these types of people hang on the initial "hey", they'll get to the point in the next message. Seriously, it would have taken a fraction of time if you had just said what you wanted from jump instead of having to treat your question like a TCP protocol handshake.
I might add more as I think of them, but this should be good enough. Maybe I'll do a part 2?
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