Human beings are strange animals; perhaps more than we could ever like to accept. And sometimes, in the particular oddities each person has adopted, we can recognize ourselves.
That’s okay.
That’s how things are.
Everyone knows and chooses to hide those dark, shameful, humiliating, intimate, even “naughty” areas. In social life, you can’t be exactly who you are. You have to measure yourself, understand when it’s appropriate to laugh, to comment, to show respect and keep quiet. But we all know that in the privacy of our cell phone we look at whatever we want and are more or less “safe”. So this is the moment to go over a curious list and see how much each of us has in common with the rest, especially in those areas made invisible by protocol and good manners.
1. Checking an ex’s profile years after the breakup
2. Imagining arguments that will never happen (and coming out the winner)
3. Feeling envy toward a dear friend
4. Secretly feeling happy about someone else’s failure
5. Feeling desire—even if only for a moment—for a close relative (uncle, cousin, grandfather, etc.)
6. Googling your own name
7. Staying awake waiting for someone to come online
8. Smiling or laughing out loud out of obligation (it can get tiring 🥲)
9. Making up excuses not to go out (even the most absurd ones!)
10. Going into someone’s profile several times (and being afraid you’ll get caught)
11. Imagining how people would react to your death (what your funeral clothes would be like, who would attend the funeral, who would say a few words, who would cry)
12. Lying about how much you sleep (there really are people who lie about this)
13. Lying about how much you earn
14. Checking a former classmate’s LinkedIn profile to make sure they didn’t get that far
15. Neglecting your toenails and feeling nervous at the beach or pool in case someone notices 😳
16. Regret having had children (momentarily)
17. Regret getting married
18. Looking at an ex’s new girlfriend and feeling immense relief when you find her ugly
19. Re-reading compliments you’ve received
20. Remembering humiliations from twenty years ago
21. Fantasizing about what it would be like to sleep with a coworker
22. Fearing being exposed as a fraud (even if you haven’t done anything wrong)
23. Lying about having understood something
24. Making impulse purchases and hiding them
25. Faking an orgasm
26. Wanting someone “forbidden” to notice them
27. Feeling relieved when a plan gets canceled
28. Keeping gifts you hate
29. Pretending to remember names
30. Feeling attracted to a friend’s partner and subtly flirting with them
31. Looking up symptoms on the internet
32. Checking several times whether you locked the door when going out
33. Saying “what a shame” without meaning it
34. Feeling lonely at a gathering
35. Comparing your current partner to a previous one
36. Checking how much your school classmates have aged (feeling a malicious joy in the most extreme cases)
37. Having favorites among your children
38. Feeling a stab of happiness when a friend announces her divorce
39. Laughing at things you didn’t understand
40. Fantasizing about winning the lottery (this can go on for hours and hours)
41. Listening again to songs associated with someone
42. Feeling guilty for not loving the way you used to (you end up wondering how it’s done, what muscle you have to exercise to achieve it)
43. Being curious to know who has felt attracted to you
44. Having wished for someone else’s breakup to happen so you’d have a chance
45. Having had strong chemistry with someone and done nothing
46. Checking if an ex is still single
47. Stealing towels, blankets, or items from hotels, buses, and airplanes
48. Waiting for texts that never came
49. Keeping a screenshot of someone you like
50. Thinking that your pet’s death would be a thousand times worse than the death of someone you know
51. Putting on certain clothes hoping to “accidentally” run into someone
52. Going to a wedding wondering whether you’ll see an old love
52. Imagining what it would be like to kiss someone during a completely normal conversation (you have them right in front of you and suddenly you kiss them—would he/she kiss you back?)
53. Feeling flattered because someone who’s taken pays attention to you (“wow, I’m so attractive that maybe that person would sacrifice everything for me”)
54. Lying about the number of sexual partners
55. Wishing a sibling won’t have children so your parents will keep preferring yours
56. Feeling afraid of accidentally passing gas during a heated intimate encounter (“if you keep spreading my legs like that… 😬”)
57. Looking at other people’s travel photos and thinking: “damn them, I hope they break up”
58. Imagining a parallel life with someone you barely know
59. Having wished that someone else’s pregnancy wouldn’t work out
60. Anxiously waiting for a sick parent’s death and feeling monstrous because of it
61. Keeping up a conversation with an artificial intelligence because no one else listens to you so attentively
62. Writing a very long message and deleted it all
63. Googling someone’s name just to see they aren’t successful
64. Going into a deceased person’s chat just to see that it still says “last seen a long time ago”
65. Wondering how much money you’ll inherit while you’re at dinner with your parents
66. Fantasizing about a second pandemic because you miss the excuse to disappear
67. Discovering that the person you miss most is someone with whom you were deeply unhappy
68. Secretly wishing a sibling would leave the country
69. Looking up the price of an apartment in the district where an acquaintance lives and wondering how they can afford it
70. Looking at your partner sleeping and wondering what to do if they stop breathing (what do I do first, who do I call, will I be able to lift their body…? will they judge me as stupid if it all ends in tragedy?)
71. Thinking that the person who loved you most was someone you treated badly
72. Thinking that your real life ended years ago and that since then you’ve only been managing consequences
73. Feeling envious of an illness because it attracts attention and affection
74. Looking at someone’s chat and thinking: “if they knew how I feel, they’d run away”
75. Keeping a shared Netflix subscription with an ex because it’s the last thing still connecting you
76. Remembering a sexual experience from decades ago 😜
77. Thinking, while everyone sings happy birthday, that none of the people present really knows you
78. Wanting someone to apologize just so you can reject them
79. Being afraid that the questions you ask ChatGPT will become known
80. Thinking: “if I hadn’t married this person, today I’d be a completely different person”
81. Feeling absurd sadness when an app changes its logo
82. Feeling secret satisfaction when someone else makes a mistake in public
83. Thinking “if they wrote to me now, I’d reply” even though years have passed
84. Being afraid of being the sad story others tell over dinner
85. Thinking that your mother loved you, but maybe didn’t especially like you
86. Keeping an old T-shirt because it still has someone’s smell
87. Looking at an old photo and missing someone who’s still alive
88. Trembling when you see “typing…” appear and feeling enormous disappointment when nothing arrives
89. Buying the perfume you wanted so badly, wearing it for a special day, and had no one say anything or even notice
90. Keeping a small ritual associated with someone who is no longer part of your life
91. Feeling ashamed of things no one remembers except you
92. Feeling simple joy when something goes right the first time without effort and wanting to tell someone about it
93. Checking how much nursing homes cost and wondering who will pay for yours
94. Organizing a drawer and feeling that for a few minutes your life is organized too
95. Going into someone’s widow’s profile and wondering how long it will take her to fall in love again
96. Turning off the alarm before it rings and gaining a few extra seconds of silence
97. Running into someone you know and having the conversation be easier than expected
98. Hearing that someone mentioned you in a conversation and feeling a quiet warmth
99. Walking without hurry and discovering that the day isn’t asking anything special of you ❤️
It’s true that some of them aren’t terrible at all: they’re pleasant subtleties. Even so, few people would say them out loud.
If you liked this list, share it with those close to you ☺️