Every time I see that little red number in my inbox, my first thought is: Did I mess up? My brain jumps to the worst-case scenario—maybe I said something controversial, and now everyone’s correcting me and downvoting my stupid comments. Even though, most of the time, the messages are actually helpful and fun, that number still triggers some sort of insecurity and anxiety. The bigger it gets, the louder my worries grow.
Logically, I know I don’t screw up that often, and most feedback is neutral or even positive. But deep down, my insecure monkey brain panics at the thought of being wrong—or worse, publicly called out. Even when I’m right, the number still makes my stress levels spike up. What if people disagree with me? What if they don’t like what I wrote?
And yes, I see the irony in posting this. Writing about it is basically asking for it and feeding the very anxiety I’m trying to ignore. Maybe it’s my version of exposure therapy.
Nope. I just go in periodically and click the button to mark all as read. The button doesn’t actually verify that I’ve read them, basically just takes my word for it and then makes the number go away … kind of in the Lemmy way where it might go away for a second, come back a minute later, go away again for awhile, then come back again for a bit, and then finally truly go away long term, permanently.
Joking aside, I get way too much hostility here on Lemmy for what amounts to making stupid boomer-style jokes and sharing personal anecdotes, so I don’t even bother reading replies in my inbox anymore. I find my time on Lemmy is much more cathartic and enjoyable this way. Sadly, that does mean I probably miss out on some discussions or responses to questions I’ve asked, but at least I don’t generally ever even see the nastiness and negativity towards me when I’m just here for a mostly light-hearted break from reality. And that works for me. After all, haters gonna hate, don’t mean I gotta participate.
Let me guess, you throw those light-hearted boomer jokes in political threads. I prefer to avoid places like that, since they bring me no happiness. For me, the web is a place to chill, a balancing force to the dull reality of normal life. Sticking with nicer places makes the web serve my purposes.
Anyway, that’s yet another very interesting way to use Lemmy and its inbox. I’m learning so much from people in this thread, so thanks for opening my eyes. If I had kept my mouth shut, expecting everyone to use Lemmy the way I do, I would never have found out.