Things I’m Starting to Find Embarrassing

There are certain things I used to think were completely normal that I am now starting to find deeply embarrassing. Not necessarily immoral. Not necessarily worth calling the authorities. Just… embarrassing. The kind of behavior that makes me look at my phone, stare at the ceiling for a second, and think, Oh, so we’re doing this now? Maybe it’s because I’m getting older. Maybe I’ve become more observant. Maybe I’ve simply reached the age where I no longer have the energy to pretend everything people do makes sense. Either way, there are a few cultural habits I think we need to discuss.

And before anybody gets offended, let me make one thing clear: I have participated in several of these myself. I am not writing this from some morally superior ivory tower. I am writing this as a woman who has made questionable decisions, posted things she probably shouldn’t have, ignored red flags because somebody was attractive, and then had the nerve to judge somebody else for doing essentially the same thing. So this is less of a lecture and more of a collective intervention.

“Protecting My Peace” When You Really Mean “I Don’t Want to Have This Conversation”

I think we’ve taken “protecting my peace” entirely too far. Sometimes protecting your peace means removing yourself from something genuinely unhealthy. Sometimes it means creating a boundary with someone who consistently disrespects you. I support that. What I don’t support is using “protecting my peace” as a cute little catchphrase for avoiding every uncomfortable conversation you’ve ever been asked to have. Not every disagreement is toxic. Not every difficult conversation is an attack. Sometimes somebody hurt your feelings and you need to tell them. Sometimes you hurt somebody else’s feelings and need to hear them out. Sometimes the mature thing isn’t blocking someone and posting a quote about boundaries. Sometimes it’s actually having the damn conversation. Avoidance does not become emotional intelligence just because you put it in a beige Instagram graphic.

Relationship Announcements Every 72 Hours

I also think we need to slow down with the relationship announcements. I understand being excited. I understand being in love. I understand wanting to post your man because you think he’s fine and you want the world to know you got one. Fine. But some of these relationships are moving at the speed of a Marvel franchise. Monday it’s “soft launching” him with a hand in the corner of a dinner picture. Wednesday he’s your “best friend.” Friday you’re posting an anniversary that somehow occurred three weeks ago. Next month you’re engaged, and by Thanksgiving you’re posting a black and white picture with the caption, “Sometimes God removes people from your life for a reason.” Girl, we just met him. Some relationships need time to become relationships before they become content. You do not have to give the public season by season updates on a man you haven’t even known long enough to learn his middle name.

Turning Everything Into a Personal Brand

I love social media. I literally write a blog on the internet, so I am not going to sit here and pretend I’m above content creation. But I do think we’ve reached a point where people are branding experiences that used to just be called life. You can’t have a bad day anymore without turning it into a carousel called “5 Things My Breakdown Taught Me About Entrepreneurship.” You can’t go to brunch without somehow turning pancakes into a lifestyle strategy. You can’t read a book without photographing it next to a coffee cup, a laptop, and a pair of sunglasses like you’re about to launch a consulting firm. Sometimes you can just exist. You don’t need a niche for every part of your personality. You don’t need to monetize every hobby. You don’t need to turn every hardship into a lesson before you’ve even finished experiencing it. Sometimes your life can just be your life.

Calling Every Bad Date a Narcissist

This one needs to be discussed because apparently every woman has dated twelve narcissists and every man has dated twelve “crazy women.” At some point, we have to accept that sometimes people just don’t like each other. Not every man who takes three hours to text you back is a narcissist. Not every woman who doesn’t want a second date is emotionally unavailable. Not every person who disagrees with you is gaslighting you. Sometimes the date was bad. Sometimes he was boring. Sometimes you were boring. Sometimes the chemistry wasn’t there. Sometimes somebody said something weird and you realized you would rather chew glass than go on another date with them. That’s okay. You don’t need a clinical diagnosis to justify not liking somebody. “I didn’t enjoy myself” is a perfectly valid reason to never see someone again.

Taking Financial Advice From TikTok

I am increasingly uncomfortable with the amount of financial advice being delivered by people sitting in their cars with a Stanley cup and a ring light. TikTok has taught people everything from how to make money to how to buy a house to how to start an LLC to how to retire by 32, and somehow the source is always a 24 year old who says, “Okay, guys, hear me out.” I’m not saying you can’t learn something online. You absolutely can. But before you restructure your entire financial life because a woman with 600,000 followers told you to open an account you’ve never heard of, maybe do five minutes of additional research. Your rent is real. Your debt is real. Your money is real. The girl filming in her passenger seat may be giving you excellent advice, but she also might have $14 in her checking account. We simply don’t know.

Being Proud of Being Busy

“I’ve just been so busy” has become one of the most common phrases in modern adulthood, and I am starting to wonder if we’re actually busy or just terrible at managing our lives. Being busy is not automatically impressive. Sometimes you’re productive. Sometimes you’re overwhelmed. Sometimes you’re building something. Sometimes you’re just answering emails at 11:47 p.m. that you ignored for three days. We’ve somehow turned exhaustion into a status symbol. People say they’re booked and busy like they deserve a medal for not sitting down since Tuesday. Rest is not laziness. Having free time does not mean you’re unsuccessful. You do not get bonus points at the end of your life because you responded to a work email while getting a pedicure. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is absolutely nothing.

Lying to Protect Shitty Family Members

I’ve also started finding the whole “but that’s family” excuse embarrassing. I understand keeping personal family matters private. Not every disagreement needs to become a public announcement. But there is a difference between privacy and protecting somebody’s terrible behavior because you’re afraid of what the truth will make the family look like. We tell children to be honest, then spend the next twenty years teaching them which family secrets they’re supposed to keep. “That’s just how Uncle So and So is.” Okay, and? Being related to somebody does not give them a lifetime membership to behave however they want without consequences. Sometimes protecting the family means protecting the people who are being mistreated, not protecting the reputation of the person doing the mistreating. Blood is thicker than water, but apparently sometimes common sense is thinner than both.

Having a “Type” That Is Literally Just Trauma

“I have a type” is another phrase I have started questioning. Because sometimes your type isn’t tall men, dark hair, athletes, or men with nice teeth. Sometimes your type is emotionally unavailable. That’s not a type. That’s a pattern. If every person you are attracted to has the emotional availability of a parking meter, eventually you have to stop blaming the dating pool and look at your taste. And yes, I say this knowing women aren’t the only people who do this. We all have a tendency to call something “chemistry” when sometimes it is just familiarity. Peace can feel boring when chaos is what you’re used to. Someone being difficult to get does not automatically make them more valuable. Sometimes they’re just difficult to get because they don’t want you. Painful, but efficient.

Posting Indirects Instead of Having a Conversation

I am also begging people to stop having conversations through Instagram stories. If you have something to say to someone, say it to them. I should not have to see “some people really show you who they are” at 9:17 a.m. and start investigating who pissed you off. Then at 9:43 there’s a quote about fake friends. At 10:15 there’s a song lyric. By noon you’re posting a selfie with “protecting my energy” as the caption. We get it. Somebody pissed you off. But if the person you’re talking about knows it’s about them and everyone else knows it’s about them, you might as well just send the text. Vague-posting is basically having a conversation with someone while making 8,000 other people sit in on it.

Treating Therapy Language Like a Personality

I love that we’re becoming more comfortable talking about mental health and emotional well being, but I think we’ve started using therapy language like seasoning. Everything is a trigger. Everyone is a narcissist. Everything is gaslighting. Every boundary is a boundary, even when it’s actually just a demand. Your boyfriend forgetting to buy oat milk is not necessarily weaponized incompetence. Your friend disagreeing with you is not automatically gaslighting. Your mother asking when you’re going to get married isn’t necessarily emotional abuse. Sometimes people are just annoying. Sometimes you’re annoying. Sometimes you handled something badly. Therapy language is supposed to help us understand ourselves and communicate better, not give us a vocabulary sophisticated enough to justify every shitty thing we do.

Thinking Everyone Needs to Know Your Business

I don’t know when privacy became uncool, but I would like it back. People are telling the internet everything now. Their relationship problems, their family drama, their salaries, their breakups, their pregnancies, their arguments, their locations, their ex’s behavior, and sometimes things I didn’t even know were physically possible to post online. At some point, transparency became oversharing. Not everything needs an audience. Some experiences become more meaningful when they belong only to you. You do not need to post the entire story while you’re still living through it. Sometimes the best thing you can do is keep something between you, your journal, and maybe one friend who has proven they can keep their mouth shut.

Making Your Trauma Your Entire Personality

I believe your trauma deserves acknowledgment, but I don’t think it deserves to become your entire personality. There is a difference between understanding why you behave the way you do and deciding that you are permanently incapable of behaving differently. “This is why I am this way” can be a starting point, but it can’t always be the ending. Your past can explain you without controlling you forever. I don’t think healing means pretending nothing happened. I think it means eventually being able to say, “Yes, that happened to me, and now what?” You are allowed to have compassion for the person you were without remaining committed to every survival mechanism that person developed.

Staying in Relationships Because You’ve “Been Together Too Long”

“We’ve been together for seven years” is not necessarily the flex people think it is. Okay. And? Do you want a trophy? Time invested in a relationship does not automatically make the relationship good. You can spend ten years with the wrong person. You can spend six months with the right person. Sometimes people stay because they don’t want to admit they spent years making the wrong decision. But staying another five years isn’t going to make the first five worth it. That’s not commitment. That’s doubling down. Time matters, but so does the quality of the time. I would rather have a shorter relationship that taught me something than spend a decade trying to convince myself that longevity is the same thing as happiness.

Thinking Being Desired Means Being Valuable

This one took me a while to understand. Being wanted is nice. Being desired is flattering. I am not going to sit here and pretend I don’t enjoy knowing somebody thinks I’m attractive. Of course I do. I’m a human woman with a functioning ego. But being desired is not the same thing as being valued. Someone can want access to you without respecting you. Someone can be obsessed with your body and completely uninterested in your mind. Someone can want you because you’re convenient, attractive, exciting, or because they like the way you make them feel. None of that automatically means they appreciate who you are. I think a lot of us have spent too much time asking, “Does he want me?” when the better question is, “Does he actually value me?” Those are two very different questions.

And Maybe the Most Embarrassing Thing Is Pretending We’re Above All of This

The funny thing about writing all of this is that I have done plenty of embarrassing shit myself. I’ve avoided conversations. I’ve overanalyzed texts. I’ve stayed too long in situations I knew weren’t right. I’ve probably posted an indirect or two. I’ve judged people while making equally questionable decisions in private. I have absolutely convinced myself that something was “different” when the evidence suggested otherwise. So I am not exempt from the culture I am criticizing.

I think that’s what getting older has really changed for me. I’m not necessarily more judgmental. I’m just more aware of patterns, including my own. There are things I used to romanticize that I now find exhausting. There are things I used to think were signs of success that I now think are signs somebody desperately needs a nap. There are things I used to tolerate because I thought they were normal that I now realize were simply familiar.

Maybe growing up is partly realizing that not everything that is common is normal, and not everything that is popular is worth participating in.

Maybe we don’t need to announce every relationship, monetize every hobby, diagnose every asshole, broadcast every disagreement, or pretend being exhausted means we’re winning.

Maybe we can just live.

Quietly sometimes.

Privately sometimes.

Badly sometimes.

Without a caption.

Without a lesson.

Without turning it into content.

And if we’re really lucky, we’ll eventually become the kind of people who can laugh at the embarrassing versions of ourselves without needing to pretend we were never her.

Because, unfortunately, I know I’m still going to do some embarrassing shit.

I’m just hoping I have enough self awareness to recognize it when I do.