Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I talk to strangers and smile at people... who think I'm weird

Apparently this sort of behavior isn’t allowed in the dc metro area. You are supposed to avoid eye contact and remain silent. So weird.

My kid goes to school in the south and it’s striking how friendly people are.

This rings true. School pickup everyone looks straight ahead or at their phones. If I catch someone's eye and smile or wave hi I feel like they think I'm trying too hard or bothering them somehow.

I have a school pickup hobby. I live on the west coast in a kind of transient area. At the start of the school year I pick out the relocated Midwesterners and NYers by saying hi at pickup. 100% of people who say hi back and smile and engage in conversation are from the Midwest or NYC.

Everyone else does the panic blink while they remember how to say hi back.

Anonymous wrote:Why are adults (especially parents) so weird!? I am an adult and parent. I find this group of people to be uptight, make life unnecessarily difficult. They are so worried about being….I don’t even know what….they’re just so busy trying to be relevant / in the know or whatever non-sense they create unpleasantness. It’s very sad.

PSA: RELAX people. Life is short. You can talk to whomever you please. You can wear what you want. You can take the subway. You can just be. AND, more importantly, let other people be. Go ahead, try having an original thought. Talk to a stranger. Smile for goodness sakes.

You left out 2 crucial details: 1) you are referring to D.C. area parents, and 2) parents around here are overwhelmingly progressive/left.

Anonymous wrote:I'm weird. We have polka dot wallpaper inside one of our closets. Sometimes I eat leftover dinner for breakfast. I've been known to sit on the floor to review a document for work because it was easier to concentrate than when in a chair. I don't like sushi. I'll deeply research any topic that interests me whether or not it affects my life, just because it struck my fancy.

I don't care what kind of car you drive as long as it's clean. I don't buy things unless what I currently have is worn out - don't care what's currently in style.

I like being weird - the open-minded people always eventually find me, and those are the people I wind up having the most fun with.

Omg so random!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find people who categorize whole huge groups of people as being one way or another (unhappy, judgmental, controlling, etc.) to be very narrow minded and judgmental themselves. Whether it's MILs, husbands, teachers, conservatives, liberals, there is nothing to be gained by making such broad statements about them. The result is only negative.

Well, that sure is generalization!

Remember, it's never them, it's always the other people that are wrong.

Anonymous wrote:I find people who categorize whole huge groups of people as being one way or another (unhappy, judgmental, controlling, etc.) to be very narrow minded and judgmental themselves. Whether it's MILs, husbands, teachers, conservatives, liberals, there is nothing to be gained by making such broad statements about them. The result is only negative.

Well, that sure is generalization!

I find people who categorize whole huge groups of people as being one way or another (unhappy, judgmental, controlling, etc.) to be very narrow minded and judgmental themselves. Whether it's MILs, husbands, teachers, conservatives, liberals, there is nothing to be gained by making such broad statements about them. The result is only negative.

Anonymous wrote:I talk to strangers and smile at people... who think I'm weird

Yes, especially in the DC area.

I find it odd that you are simultaneously calling people weird for having insecurities and being imperfects, expressing that you judge these people a lot and find them extremely annoying...

... and at the same time saying that they should just relax and be themselves and not worry so much about what other people [LIKE YOU] think of them.

Who is weird here?

I'm weird. We have polka dot wallpaper inside one of our closets. Sometimes I eat leftover dinner for breakfast. I've been known to sit on the floor to review a document for work because it was easier to concentrate than when in a chair. I don't like sushi. I'll deeply research any topic that interests me whether or not it affects my life, just because it struck my fancy.

I don't care what kind of car you drive as long as it's clean. I don't buy things unless what I currently have is worn out - don't care what's currently in style.

I like being weird - the open-minded people always eventually find me, and those are the people I wind up having the most fun with.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I talk to strangers and smile at people... who think I'm weird

Apparently this sort of behavior isn’t allowed in the dc metro area. You are supposed to avoid eye contact and remain silent. So weird.

My kid goes to school in the south and it’s striking how friendly people are.

This rings true. School pickup everyone looks straight ahead or at their phones. If I catch someone's eye and smile or wave hi I feel like they think I'm trying too hard or bothering them somehow.

I hope you realize that you're seeing the worse side of things on DCUM, where people spill their innermost insecurities and prejudices, that they would never reveal to their real-life friends in such a dictatorial way. There is a humility in real-life interactions, and an acceptance of other people's views, that there isn't online, where people hide behind keyboards and project more inflexibility. But that's only if you get them one-on-one. In a real-life or virtual group, people can try to virtue signal to show they're part of the group, and that can get discriminatory fast, since the most effective way of showing they belong is to sink another group.

Homo Sapiens is highly evolved technically, and highly evolved socially, but it's still the social behavior of tribes. If we want to unite the earth and move on to other planets, I think we may have more work to do on the social front than on the technical front.

Anonymous wrote:I talk to strangers and smile at people... who think I'm weird

Apparently this sort of behavior isn’t allowed in the dc metro area. You are supposed to avoid eye contact and remain silent. So weird.

My kid goes to school in the south and it’s striking how friendly people are.

I talk to strangers and smile at people... who think I'm weird

Anonymous wrote:Why are adults (especially parents) so weird!? I am an adult and parent. I find this group of people to be uptight, make life unnecessarily difficult. They are so worried about being….I don’t even know what….they’re just so busy trying to be relevant / in the know or whatever non-sense they create unpleasantness. It’s very sad.

PSA: RELAX people. Life is short. You can talk to whomever you please. You can wear what you want. You can take the subway. You can just be. AND, more importantly, let other people be. Go ahead, try having an original thought. Talk to a stranger. Smile for goodness sakes.

I left my church because of this. It was rampant. Lots of misogyny too, for a very liberal-leaning church.

Why are adults (especially parents) so weird!? I am an adult and parent. I find this group of people to be uptight, make life unnecessarily difficult. They are so worried about being….I don’t even know what….they’re just so busy trying to be relevant / in the know or whatever non-sense they create unpleasantness. It’s very sad.

PSA: RELAX people. Life is short. You can talk to whomever you please. You can wear what you want. You can take the subway. You can just be. AND, more importantly, let other people be. Go ahead, try having an original thought. Talk to a stranger. Smile for goodness sakes.