Stop Bragging About How Little You Care

Yeah, we all know the profile. The instagram bio with a lightning bolt emoji and a quote that has just got the right amount of “I don’t care about anything or anyone, but I care enough to construct this bio perfectly to show how much I don’t care.” This instagram feed is filled with witty captions and selfies like “full face of makeup, going nowhere” and captions glorifying unhappiness and somehow making mood disorders such as depression chic. This IDGAF about anything generation leaves us feeling empty unwanted and unsatisfied.

This I don’t care attitude manifests its ugly head in the way we date too. For example, instead of dropping hints to an attractive guy at work we mindlessly scroll through dating apps hoping to find the one. Or at least the one for a few weeks. Saying dating in 2017 is complicated is an understatement, and frankly the game that I reject the most is whoever cares less wins. This fifth grade schoolyard game of “I’m cooler than you” is juvenile and leads to nowhere but frustration and precious time wasted.

Also, announcing that you are an asshole and admitting it doesn’t make it any better that you are one. But when you are a guy trying to catch the attention of ten beautiful girls on Bumble you matched with, instead of putting in the work and getting to know someone it’s easy to play the role of the bad boy and see who falls for it. It’s not just dating apps where the IDGAF mindset bleeds into, I think it’s everywhere in our social settings.

Think of it like this. You are out on the town with your friends on a Friday night waiting for them to arrive at the bar to meet up. You plop on a barstool and order a cocktail. Out of the corner of your eye you see an acquaintance you sort of know from so and so. Now what is the first reaction a lot of us tend to do? Avoid, avoid, avoid at all costs and probably whip out your phone and mindlessly scroll away pretending your preoccupied. Yes, making small talk can sometimes seem exhausting but hiding in our phones closes us off for an opportunity to make a new friend or gain face-to-face interaction that might surprise us.

Now I’m not saying every single time we choose to ignore that acquaintance or take the easy way out, but having our phones so readily available to us makes it easier for us to hide away. Can we be comfortable with just being? Is it an okay feeling… being in the now? I think yoga and practicing mindfulness is on the rise more than ever because we have no idea how to live in the now. We literally have to be dragged into the now; almost as if were pinching our own flesh just to be like we are here this is real! But instead we are so much more comfortable living in our virtual realm where we can enter a far off dimension filled with far away destinations and photos of happy Instagram models we want to be.

But, for me at least I have a lot of hope. I think the people who brag about not caring are the loneliest ones out there. I think everyone is entitled a right to become the most evolved version of themselves, or remain stagnant. And those who choose to remain the same have that right. I just think our generation as a whole should look at what harm it causes to sit back, tune out and not be mindful of how we treat others. We have to remember we aren’t defined by the random statuses we post or the photo we are tagged in at our friends wedding. We are living breathing human beings, always progressing and changing and nothing should be perceived about us until you care enough to sit down and really know someone. Because I think giving a fuck is actually pretty cool.