When You Just Want Everyone to Shut the F*ck Up
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
It doesn’t mean you are misanthropic to the core.
Just because you want everyone to shut the f*ck up.
It means you just want it to stop. For a minute.
The whirling dervish of the world.
Your friends
Your family
Your phone
Your (e)mail
Your work
Social media.
“I have a theory about the human mind. A brain is a lot like a computer. It will only take so many facts, and then it will go on overload and blow up.” — Erma Bombeck
Your friends
Your friends can be your saving grace. They are there for you when others aren’t. They know you. The real you. They believe in you.
But sometimes you just want them to shut the f*ck up.
About their partner. About their kids. About their jobs. About how they can’t decide if they like Reese Witherspoon or not. About their political views.
You love them. But sometimes you wonder why you accepted this dinner invite. Since they are trying out veganism this week. And they really want to talk a lot about how they can’t decide whether or not they should have a third child while the other two are beating each other up with real hammers twenty feet away.
Your family
Your family is everything to you. You are genetically predisposed to be close with one another. The love from your family shines brighter than any light.
But sometimes you just want them to shut the f*ck up.
They feel like they can “be honest” with you because they are family. This is really just a way of telling you in advance that they are about to act like an a**hole.
They need to talk to you about what to do with Dad, but they want you to actually “do” all the stuff you talk about. They need to tell you how your radical decision against giving your kids the flu shot will kill them. This Thursday. But no judgment.
They expect your undying gratitude because once they brought over a case of water to a barbecue because your partner forgot. They never liked them anyway.
They make phone calls to you and then forget what they were going to say because one of their demon children (your nieces and nephews) got their hands on a leaf blower and has their sister’s hair sucked into it. But they want you to stay on the phone until they remember why they called.
“My family is my strength and my weakness.” — Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Your phone
Your phone is your lifeline. It’s always there for you. It gives you directions. It plays games with you. It plays your favorite music. It saves all of your photos. It helps you meditate. It’s basically the Dalai Lama.
But sometimes you just want it to shut the f*ck up.
With its dings. And alerts. And banner notifications. And vibrating. I can still hear you as you vibrate off the side of the table you little bastard.
And the texts. And calls. From your f*cking friends. And family.
To make you feel bad because you didn’t text back right away with an answer about a holiday in nine months. Because you were busy changing your baby’s explosive diarrhea. While your dog just got out of the backyard gate again. And your other kid was who knows where doing who knows what. And then just right when the new diaper was secure, your baby unloaded again. While your dog was laying down in a mud puddle. And your other kid was who knows where doing who knows what.
But your phone doesn’t give a sh*t. It just keeps beeping and buzzing. Telling you about how you should stand for a minute. Or take a breath to feel better.
Your (e)mail
Your email is a great way to reduce the amount of phone calls and texts you get. It’s an easy way to reach people in advance. It’s something you can choose to look at in your own time.
But sometimes you just want it to shut the f*ck up.
With the 40% off sale. Or the important update to your service agreement. Or with urgent information from your kids’ school about the upcoming bake sale. Or with anything at all that you don’t want to deal with right then.
But it doesn’t stop there. It knows you can’t keep up. And then it stares at you with its beady f*cking eyes and sinister red dot, telling you that you have 12,107 unread emails.
It also suckers you into believing that nothing serious will come through its channel. Except from all of your partners who it didn’t work out with. Because they didn’t want to talk in person, or call, or text. So they emailed you. To tell you that they wanted to be “just friends.”
I wrote it as (e)mail because there is another jerk hiding in the mail system.
Your mail is a great way to get catalogs that you never signed up for. Ones you don’t like and don’t want to recycle. It’s also great for coupon flyers for anything that you never want.
But it’s great that all that stuff is crammed into your mailbox so you miss the important bill from your dentist that you “forgot” to pay last month.
Your work
Your work gives you money to support yourself and your family. It gives you a sense of pride and accomplishment for a job well done. It gives you the opportunity to move up and grow.
But sometimes you just want everyone at work to shut the f*ck up.
Like your “work friends” who only pretend to like you because you are kind of their boss. But they don’t want to get drinks the one night your partner is out of town on business because they have laundry to do. Together. At the same bar you wanted to go to.
Like your boss who really needs you to get this done today. But it’s not due for another week. And it’s actually theirs to do. But you will do it. While they sit in their office and think that we don’t know they are playing Fortnite.
Like your home office that stares at you silently, waiting for you to be more creative. It frowns at your disproportionate amount of time on YouTube versus your project.
Social Media
Social media is your sharing outlet. Some days it’s your muse. It is always on and waiting for your next hilarious, thought-provoking or heart-wrenching diatribe.
But sometimes you just want social media to shut the f*ck up.
With their “recommendations” from their enhanced algorithm. And their constant personal growth tips bound to make you successful before 4 a.m. in thirty days if you just sign up for this email list.
Or their decisions on how to organize your feed that has nothing to do with recency. With their enticing new directives that you can Beta test today only. But only if you sign up for another email list, agree to write a review for it, take a survey, and sign an NDA for eternity.
And with their push notifications that three people you don’t even know liked something that someone you don’t know posted on a network you are never on.
The Problem With Telling Everyone to Shut the F*ck Up and Leave You Alone
They will get offended. They won’t be there for you when you need them. They will stop working when you need them the most. They will hide things from you. They will make things disappear. They will fire you. They will start putting ads on all of your work.
So in the end, maybe it’s us who should probably just shut the f*ck up. It’ll be easier all around.