I am a person with a very low tolerance for “cringe.” It’s so bad that when I’m watching a movie with other people and a particularly awkward scene takes place, I will get up and leave the room until it’s over. I don’t care how good “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is, you will never catch me watching it again.
I’m not exactly sure where this came from, but I want to at least partially blame the internet. I’ve always been embarrassingly chronically online. I had TikTok back when it was something you would hide in a folder on the last page of your home screen so nobody would see it. The internet’s favorite brand of dejected, mean-spirited, caked-in-12-layers-of-irony sense of humor could not have been good for my developing brain.
So much of recent media has been hyper-ironic and detached. I believe this is a reflection of our current social and political climate, and it has made liking things and caring uncool.
Additionally, I think the fact that anything you put online is permanent engrained in me a debilitating fear of failure, because any evidence of your failure can be seen by literally anyone at any time. That fear isn’t unfounded either. If you are familiar with “the electric feel incident” or “the Marsha P. Johnson guy,” you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
That sense of being watched at all times has done a lot of damage to the way I interact with people, not only online, but also in person. I often feel like every conversation with someone I just met is like defusing a bomb while colorblind.
I care about what people think of me to an embarrassing degree. One way this has manifested itself is compartmentalization of my life. I keep most parts of my life separate, and it’s so bad that my most recent partner never met most of my friends because I am terrified of being judged based on what they think of each other.
I’m trying to fix that about myself, but it isn’t easy when your first instinct is to run from any situation that might make you or someone else cringe.
I don’t really know why I felt the need to write any of this. It’s probably just for myself but I hope that anyone reading this has the courage to be corny. If you cringed while reading that, just know I cringed while writing it. I still have a long way to go.