← Back to context

Comment by Swizec

16 hours ago

The risk does not involve lasting consequences. Just don’t make things a big deal and people will mostly follow your lead.

Lasting consequences include social outcasting and even dismissal. Those are pretty lasting.

>Just don’t make things a big deal

That sadly doesn't stop the runmors from flowing. That's the real damning thing about such social faux pas. Your reputation can be ruined without having a single person say it to your face. That's both unsettling and morbid for how you look to humanity.

  • You have to mess up pretty badly for this to happen. Most people would be a lot less worried what others think of them if they realized how rarely the do.

    The reality is that most people are too busy thinking about themselves to spend any time thinking about you or a random little interaction that didn’t land

    • > The reality is that most people are too busy thinking about themselves to spend any time thinking about you

      I was fortunate to come to this realization in my 20s and wish I had realized it so much sooner. The vast majority of people are only thinking about themselves the vast majority of the time. This means the anxiousness we feel about what we think other people think about us is mostly made up in our heads.

  • If you’re not talking to anyone, you’re already a social outcast. In my mind the risk of saying something wrong is much less than the risk of being omitted through inaction.