We all know what being “fake” is, and we all probably know someone who we’d consider fake. But I feel like the definition of “fake” has taken on a whole new meaning lately. Whereas we used to worry that people only pretended to like us, now we worry when people we care about seem not to care about us. Both types of worries involve someone being “fake,” but the latter is designed to hurt us.
In my experience, “unbothered” performances occur primarily online. The internet allows us to put on a plausible façade—it’s hard to tell what someone is really thinking or feeling when we don’t have much to go off of. You’ve probably either witnessed or taken part in “unbothered” behavior. Have any of your friends ever told you that they’re posting a Snapchat story of them having a good time so that a certain person will see it and know that they’re doing fine without them? The point is to pretend that you are “unbothered,” to show someone that you are not affected whatsoever by a conversation or an event that has gone down between you. My question is, why?
It’s one thing to be unbothered if someone who is irrelevant in your life is spewing meaningless hate. Obviously, you don’t need to waste your time getting hurt by those people. By all means, please continue to live your best life.
It’s another thing to intentionally flaunt your (supposed) indifference in order to trick someone who cares about you into thinking that you don’t care about them. The issue that I have with this is that people act unbothered to hurt the other person, and this other person often means or meant a lot to them, usually a friend or an ex. Ironically, people who act this way likely do care, and I know this because one, we’ve all been there, and two, if people truly didn’t care, they wouldn’t make the effort to act like they didn’t.
I don’t know when indifference started being cool. I thought that expressing our feelings was becoming less stigmatized. We even have memes to joke about the unfortunate things that befall us in life, and they’re so mainstream these days that we aren’t afraid to admit that we can relate. Apparently, though, people get even more pleasure out of dissing people, not through insults, but by completely ignoring their existence.
Acting unbothered is intended to hurt the other person, and when you succeed, it’s considered a victory. This kind of behavior is applauded and respected, especially online. I think it’s because showing someone that they aren’t important enough to affect you makes you feel powerful, invincible. But it also tells the other person that you feel nothing when you actually do.
I get it, sometimes it’s much easier to pretend that you’re not hurt. You don’t want to give the other person power over you, because letting them know that they hurt you leaves you vulnerable. But acting unbothered perpetuates the myth that people can somehow be emotionless creatures, and it doesn’t resolve the issue, it just fuels the fire.
We have no trouble telling our finsta followers about all our drama, but so much trouble telling our friends that they’ve hurt us. Maybe we should try putting our pride aside and expressing ourselves. If they truly care about us, we should be able to appeal to their empathy and have a productive conversation. And if not, then you know who your real friends are.
This is 2020, ladies. It’s the year of honesty, vulnerability, and humility.