“Are you mad at me?”
It is one of the most toxic and hurtful questions you can ask to another person. I never fully realized how potent it was until some of my close friends pointed it out to me. I used to ask people, in particular my ex-girlfriend, whenever I felt I had done something wrong, and most of the time it would only serve to worsen the situation. Logically speaking, if you are close friends with someone and you ask that without being able to tell based on their tone or body language, they will interpret it as that you’re just being a bad friend, or really are clueless and obviously shouldn’t be. On the other hand, say that someone isn’t really upset with you in the first place: asking that question will likely result in them getting mad at you anyway. Like I said, it will just make the situation worse regardless.
By the end of my freshman year, I finally decided to my friends and stop asking them if they were mad at me. Yes, I “let it slip” every now and again, but hey, nobody is perfect. I wondered why it took me so long to realize how horrible of a question it is to ask, and why I asked it so much back in high school especially. I figured it was a way for me to process the world better. I know that I struggle in social situations, so I used it to judge how someone was feeling based on my previous actions. I never had the intent of hurting somebody or making them feel worse, it was more of me trying to process my own social insecurities and figure out what I did wrong, or if I did anything wrong at all. There were times that I felt someone should have been mad at me for my actions, but my attempts to learn the truth ended up making that come true, for all of the wrong reasons.
Fortunately for me, I’ve broken away, for the most part, from asking that question, and believe me it’s for the best. I have come to realize that I do not need to rely as much on how other people react to the things that I do as much as I have to worry about making sure that I am being the best possible version of myself that I can be. Now I can do better in social situations, and I never even feel the need to ask that question unless I’ve really messed up. But even then I will rarely ever do so.
I’m better off without asking it, and you’re better off without asking it, too.
