The Liberating Nature of 'Nobody Cares'

Caring is a curse.

And I don't mean "empathy," I mean the overt fixation on "caring" about what other people think. Years ago, a friend of mine was struggling with alcoholism and decided to become sober. We were both young journalists, and it's no secret that journalists enjoy a nice cocktail or seven. She was worried about what would happen when she went to the work party and didn't drink, and I predicted that nothing would happen. That no one would even notice or care about her not drinking because they'd be too busy paying attention to themselves, their own drinking, and having fun.

And no one did. No one said anything to her about her drinking (or lack thereof) as she enjoyed the party sober while everyone else got wasted.

Nobody caring, at times, is a blessing. To know that whatever faux pas you once made 10 years ago was likely forgotten by everyone who witnessed it but you. To know no one is truly keeping score. To know that if someone is overly fixated on you, that's a them problem, not a you problem, is freeing. It's liberating. And most especially for me, it's peace.

I realized the freedom of "nobody cares" when I was a child. I dealt with bullies from first grade to 11th grade, as it seemed my peers were overly fixated and harsh about whatever dumb kid thing I was doing. I was woefully "uncool" by child standards (although adults liked me just fine). My uncoolness was rooted in my social awkwardness (I was an extrovert, but I was also a nerdy, so-called "teacher's pet"), my stubbornness, my so-called "maturity" for my age, and the fact that it was fairly easy to make me cry if you didn't like me for whatever reason. I was alone a lot as a kid in school when I craved friends and social connection. I went home crying to my mother about it, constantly bemoaning how "nobody likes me."

But then, as I matured, I got better at masking or hiding my true feelings as I did what is now known as "grey rocking" to my would-be tormentors. Grey rocking, or to become a "grey rock," is to be boring and give no emotional response in order to diffuse, frustrate, and shut down a malignant narcissist or any other kind of toxic person.

I have no clue whether my pint-sized terrorists were "narcissists" in the medical sense. To me, they were just self-centered, obnoxious kids who fixated on me because of whatever was wrong in their lives. I was a convenient scapegoat and, as my mother would say over and over and over again, they were probably jealous. "Of what?!" I used to cry, not understanding how jealousy works in kids (and adults). But I was an A-student who was front and center in every school program, play, or presentation, and an artist whose class regularly won door prizes because of my illustrations. So naturally, I had to be destroyed.

Then I learned to give my tormentors "nothing" in return for their insults and cruelty, grey-rocking them to the point they got bored and found a new target for their ire.

It was then I realized that all that abuse, all that hate was never about me at all. And realizing this was life-altering. It didn't matter. Their anger at themselves and me catching the strays from it didn't matter because I was not responsible for other people's emotions. People, in fact, are so blinded by their own issues and triggers that they often don't notice what others are going through. So the guy honking at me in traffic because he can't wait two seconds for me to cross the street? Probably upset about something else, not me, who's just trying to walk here. The woman who loses it on me because I didn't recognize her because she changed her hair since I last saw her a year ago is clearly dealing with some kind of insecurity that has nothing to do with me. One of the most beautiful things (or disturbing, depending on your vantage point) about living in New York City is you can absolutely cry, lose your mind, and have a meltdown in public, and people will leave you alone, ignore you, or pretend you're not losing your shit. Nobody cares. Nobody cares, and it's great. It's a relief that there is no score card in anyone's head going "Ugh, she wore that sweater I don't like again," and if they do, what's that person's problem other than it's not yours!?

"Nobody cares" is freedom. "Nobody cares" is how I get through life. Knowing that no one cares means I can be myself, pure and unfiltered, and let the chips fall where they may. Am I cool? Probably not, and it doesn't matter. Hardly anyone pulls a check or wins awards for "vibes only." Coolness is nice if you can get it, but it's not a strategy to get through life and all its foibles.

Dorinda Medley of The Real Housewives of New York fame once had a tagline that said, "If you have a problem with me, that's your problem!" And I gotta say, Dorinda's making sense here. Never choose to do or not do something based on the fear of what others may think. Because who cares? What I eat doesn't feed the naysayers. The minute you start making decisions based on everyone but yourself and your needs, you're messing up. So embrace "nobody cares" and become carefree.

What other people think (or don't think) of you is not your problem.