astercontrol:

one struggle that is common to group socializing (whether it’s posting on a social media site or talking out loud in a room full of friends) is “you said something you thought was clever, but no one responded”

this is particularly frustrating because the different possible reasons have such different outcomes

maybe you said something others would find clever, but no one noticed when you said it. (in which case, saying/posting it again– or even several times, until someone notices– may bring intense admiration and praise)

or maybe you said something that they find uninteresting, or even offensive. (in which case saying/posting it again will make you look annoying at best and downright evil at worst)

and if you don’t intuitively know, there… isn’t really a way to tell which it is

(and maybe it’s best to just err on the side of caution? but then, if your idea was clever but you personally are just socially invisible… then someone else will later say the same thing and get all the praise. and this is… not easy to handle.)

Additional confusing factor: the degree to which people can genuinely fail to notice something you say? It’s so high it’s counterintuitive.

I have announced things (ranging from “work-related news” to “admitting I was the one who played the prank everyone’s talking about”) in my loudest acceptable indoor voice, in an otherwise fairly quiet room full of coworkers, and had everyone display zero sign that they heard me, either then or later

I have had people online gush to me about how much they love my most-recent, third-most-recent, and fourth-most-recent AO3 fics, and then display astonishment upon finding out that I wrote the second-most-recent one

I’ve had mutuals who go wild over most of my posts but ignore a particular one, and then suddenly go wild over that one too after I self-reblog it the fourth or fifth time

I’ve asked my bosses a question (about expiration dates) and received the answer to the question (about package quantity) that they were assuming I was gonna ask– and had to repeat my actual question (same words, same voice tone) to get a relevant answer

I am not exaggerating when I tell you my life changed (in a somewhat psychological-horror way) when I realized 1. how little people notice of the world around them, and 2. that some of us seem to be more “noticeable” than others, and if you are a mostly-invisible person there is not much you can do about it