Eleven Stranger Things In Real Life

Don’t get too excited, no Millie Bobbie Brown up in here, it was clickbait but thanks anyway. Don’t roll your eyes at me; please stay. There’s no eleven but here are 11 random things that legit happen every day and you just walk around accepting like it’s nothing.

Laughing:

I don’t remember who I was talking to about this, but a couple of weeks back a friend and I discussed that laughing is weird. Sort of because, as a generation, we are bonded by the fact that sometimes the only time we “laugh” is when we see a meme.

We look at our phones, and instead of laughing, we just breathe slightly sharper out of our noses. Then there’s actual laughing, which is forced air/little screams that show affection and/or acceptance for others sense of humour. I mean that’s cool and all, but think about it, we all have a personalised sequence/s of breathing and little shouting/screams which we sometimes use involuntarily to show that we are amused. And that same breathing/screaming pattern makes us happy and makes others happy, but it can also infuriate people? Whaaaat?

“You too” and “Sorry”:

Okay okay okay who’s ever done this? (Everyone). You’ve just made it through the whole process of asking for then getting food, and the waiter/waitress/Maccas employee says, “Enjoy your meal!” then you answer, “You too!”. Um… did you just take a happy meal like a compliment? (Kids, if someone compliments you, it’s only right to return the compliment. Don’t be rude by just saying thanks).

I actually have this problem on my birthday. People are like “Happy Birthday!” and here I am, flattered as ever because you recognised that I was born on this very day where you’re socially required to acknowledge if not celebrate my being born.

You illicit a personalised breathing screaming sequence if people do it all the time? I have no answers, except that you will never live it off.

Okay, now imagine you’ve just stood up from your table or got out of your car with your Maccas, and you’ve o so gently hit the side of the table with your hip bone on the way up and what do you say? “Sorry!” to the inanimate object which does not feel pain or care that you hit it. Maybe you even let out a premature “Ouch!” just in case it was going to hurt, but then it didn’t. Perhaps you replied to, “Hey”, with “Good, how are you?”. It’s a whole struggle, and you’ve all done it, people do it every day. Why is it so awkward? Why is it that we have pre-written scripts for conversations we haven’t even had yet? Why are we boring ourselves this way? I actually have this problem on my birthday, where people are like “Happy Birthday!” and here I am, flattered as ever because you recognised that and I’m like “You too!”.

Arguments in your head:

Okay, maybe not arguments as such, but we all have conversations in our heads. That’s what happens when we zone out (well, for me that’s what happens). That’s really weird too, like why not just have an actual conversation if you’re in the mood for one? Also, why does it happen when you are in the middle of a real conversation or, someone is talking to you?

My issue here is that I go one step further. I hope someone can relate with this, but my face does this thing. Even when I am actually talking to someone, my face speaks for itself. However, you have to know me to some extent to understand what all these facial expressions mean. Someone told me that it’s hard to figure out, based on my facial expression, if I’m really really angry or crazy happy because I smile. All. The. Time. I have very little control over it, but the few times I make myself aware of it seems to be when I’m in the middle of an inside-mind conversation, and I realise that I’ve been making facial expressions to match what’s going on in said conversation. Oh, the embarrassment of it.

Ties:

Who decided that hanging/tying a patterned piece of fabric around your neck makes you established and formal? Like who first walked in with an extra-long hanky tied in a knot and the posh uppitys were all like “Oh he’s so attractive and civilised!”

Saying your own name:

Your name is a mixture of sounds made by a particular way that a person manipulates the air coming out of their mouth with their tongue. What’s weirder is that you’re conditioned to respond to it. It’s YOUR claimed mixture of sounds, which probably wasn’t your choice to have. I, for example, seem to answer to the ‘sh’ sound because obviously, you’re talking about me because you used a noise that takes place in the last syllable of my name.

If you have some sort of weird dis-attachment to your name as I do, then you continually question how it is that you belong to this sequence of sounds. Does your name belong to you, or do you belong to your name? Hmmm? I need answers. And maybe a new name, please.

Other people’s names:

Okay, but why is it that we somehow automatically associate certain names with a particular personality? It doesn’t even have to be based on anyone you know, it’s just simple… Britney: a pretty blonde ditz, Alice: a posh English bookworm, Kevin: the cute dork that your mum wants you to marry and Travis: the guitarist with greasy hair that your mum does NOT want you to marry. We judge people based on their name before even meeting them.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to patiently endure the comment “I thought you were black before I met you.”, then laugh politely as I pretend with you like you’re the first person crazy. (Shout out to all those teachers who try to pronounce my name like I’m Asian “Tie-(like the neck cotton string)-neesha”. Just for anyone wondering, the ‘y’ is essentially silent, just ignore it, it’s not even there thanks.) (Secondary shout out to every person who’s ever spelt my name ‘Tynessha’. Don’t be dumb.)

Getting attached to or disliking certain words:

I’m about 97% sure that I was born with the sole purpose of ruining the entire English language. Have you ever said a word too many times and then just cringed everytime you heard it afterwards? Or maybe just had to write a word and for some reason, it doesn’t look like a real word even though you know it’s spelt right?

Seriously, how is it that we can go years speaking this dumb language and somehow it surprises me every day? People who speak English don’t even know how to speak English. There are too many old ladies who’ve asked me, “How are you?” and then elevator eyes my peasantry when I reply “I’m good, how are you?”, just to straighten themselves up, purse their lips like a pinched face and answer “I’m well, thenkquoo.” (Posh old ladies have a specific way to pronounce thank you).

The other thing about this is that alternative to burning hatred for certain words; we also favour them. Some more than others, because I can firmly say that I could divide my life into periods of time wherein I used certain phrases consistently. But you’ll find that you pick up little phrases or word preferences from the people you hang around, or the internet or something and everyone just say things all the time with no idea that they’ve said that same sentence 20 times in that day so far.

Numbers:

We also have this fixation when it comes to numbers, again, obviously some more than others. Who has a lucky number? Hang on, let me guess. 7? (Okay 80% of you are gone) 13? (Bye bye hipsters) 11? 42? (Bye nerds) 8? 6? 4? 9? and of course 69 for the dirty minds. Don’t worry, mine’s 3, for absolutely no good reason. My birthday is on the 3rd, and “Good things come in 3’s”, right? Comedy punchlines, TLC, most little friend groups, karma, (speaking of, Faking It had three seasons), the magic letters “etc.”… (and my beloved ellipsis). I don’t know; I like “Good things come in three’s” more than “Good things come to those who wait.” Sooo yeah.

But for the most part, I think the reason someone gives you for having their lucky number tells you a lot about who they are as a human bean. It probably affects you a lot more than you realise every day. You might be more favourable of certain times in the day or night based on these numbers in that it could affect your sense of time or schedule. You might be more likely to spend money depending on this number too, which means it could have an impact on your diet or style. You might be more inclined to be in a good mood on certain days of the week or month because of this as well, and you just have no idea.

The question is, are we just naturally attuned to individual numbers? Or do we pick it? Or maybe a bit of both? Yeah, there’s a whole big study on it, if anyone wants to read a book about this, I recommend ‘Alex Through the Looking-Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life‘, by Alex Bellos, it’s cool.

Shuffle:

Oi, so when you put your music on shuffle because you don’t want to pick a song, why is it that the first song that comes up is never the one you ‘wanted’? Why did you even put it on shuffle if you wanted a particular song? Actually, you didn’t really want a particular song, but you knew you didn’t want that one. Weird.

Music, in general:

Is it just weird… the way some people are just born with natural musical talent (e.g. pretty sure it’s somewhat hereditary in my fam)? The different ‘tastes’ in music and how you genuinely have your very own particular preference with your music, and there’s probably some crazy psychological reason for that. The way we associate songs with times in our lives or people or whatever else.

The way that I can remember ten thousand song lyrics but can’t remember my phone number. How we Aussies will always remember, “1300 655 506 the Reading Writing Hotline” and the way you totally just sang that in your head when you realised what it was. The way people get songs stuck in their heads without even knowing how it got in there. The way it controls our moods. Hitler used music to control his Nazis, bro, that’s how you know its power. (Even when it’s a mixture of 6 notes over and over in different patterns but okay.)

Balloons and Birthday Candles:

So this one is just a personal observance… balloons and candles to celebrate someone’s birthday? Why is it, that stretchy plastic bags full of other people’s breath or toxic gases make us happy? How are they representative of a birthday? And then we stab cake with a stick of wax to represent your age? Why do we light it up and then blow it out and why do we not know or aren’t allowed to know what peoples birthday wishes are or if they even made one or just blow the fire out?

Yeah, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed my random rant.