Opinion | No, you’re not nonchalant — you just don’t know how to talk to people

Our generation has a huge problem when it comes to building relationships, whether they’re platonic or romantic. Dating apps are a big part of this, as I think that it’s becoming more and more rare that our generation meets their significant others in person. When it comes to making friendships, Gen Z is so concerned with image — not wanting to come off as cringe and instead acting “nonchalant” — that it’s sometimes practically impossible for some of us to befriend people like we could a mere decade ago. What happened to going up to someone you wanted to be friends with, introducing yourself and starting a conversation? Do we just no longer have the ability to make small talk? 

In my experience, the answer is yes, and I blame social media and dating apps for that.

We spend a significant percentage of our days behind screens. Our generation is known for constantly recording and being recorded, and anyone can be mocked for being themselves at any given moment. Whether they openly care too much about something or simply have a bad outfit on, everyone who sees that has free reign to videotape, comment and judge them.

The trend of “nonchalance” is just naming a phenomenon that has been bubbling for nearly a decade — Gen Z can’t make connections without the risk of embarrassment, which more often than not means we miss out on opportunities for incredible relationships due to the fear of being judged, called “cringe” or being made fun of en masse online. 

If you’ve seen that one girl online who parodies the “Gen Z girl who has no personality,” you might be familiar with her use of, “Oh, that’s not …” when referring to how this type of person in our generation will judge the people around them. The problem is, a phrase like, “Oh, that’s not …” leaves so much to the interpretation of the receiver on the other end, as its vagueness basically puts everything you do in that moment into judgement. Plenty of us fear this type of judgement, and some even let it define how they present themselves outwardly. They might dull down certain “louder” aspects of their character to fit in, be more digestible to people like that, etc., and this leads to the aforementioned trend of “nonchalance.” If you give off the impression that you don’t care — not just about “cringe” things you might actually like, but about anything emotional in general — you’re perceived as cool, likeable and most importantly, the person everyone wants to hang out with.

I genuinely despise this mindset, because it’s making a large portion of our generation afraid to be unique in their own ways — in their personality, in their interests and in their outward expression. It’s so easy to overthink your every move when it feels like the world is always judging you, but that overthinking is holding us back from forming genuine connections. When I was really little, about three years old, I first heard the quote, “just be yourself, everyone else is taken.” It’s simple and cheesy, but it’s so true. The beauty of being your own person is that nobody else is like you — only you possess the unique qualities that you have inside. Those qualities make you distinct, and they make other people want to build connections with you. If everyone was the same cookie-cutter version of each other, the world would be boring. In fact, I think our generation is pretty boring because we’re slowly getting closer to that point.

I’ve always preferred being authentic to myself for my own happiness and peace of mind, because it both makes me feel fulfilled and helps me meet other people unafraid to be themselves. Unfortunately, this quality is swiftly dwindling among our generation. I despise the fact that people prefer to be palatable to as many people as possible over being palatable to themselves. This type of inauthenticity holds you back socially more than being genuine because it sets the precedent that you need to dull yourself to be loved by others. In reality, the opposite is true. What makes us loveable is our distinct qualities.

I recently redownloaded Tinder, and it’s alarmingly obvious that our generation is overwhelmingly fearful to be themselves. You can’t say too much off the bat, or else you’ll scare your matches away. You can’t reveal all your interests because that makes you too “weird” to date. You can’t even openly tell someone you’re interested in them without coming off as desperate, but let’s be honest — everyone who uses dating apps is desperate — and yes, that includes me. 

The problem is that conversation moves so slow as to not scare the other person away which subsequently takes countless matches and first dates to actually find someone you click with. People keep their walls up so high that they don’t even want to admit when they don’t like someone back sometimes — you’re just supposed to ghost the other person and hope they stop texting you and “get the hint.” 

This begs the question — whatever happened to communication?

I’m a huge fan of saying how you feel out loud, but it feels like everyone around me is scared of it. There’s nothing wrong with expressing yourself. Actually, the people I click with most are the people most open and explicit with their intentions and emotions. If you don’t open up to the people you want to get close to, then you’ll never build a relationship, platonic or otherwise. It’s just that simple.

As previously mentioned, I find it’s becoming more and more rare to find people who also operate this way. Maybe that’s a good thing, and maybe it means that being your genuine self leads you to other genuine people. But shouldn’t we all be doing that? Why are so many people choosing this “nonchalance” over their true selves?

I don’t hate many things in life, but I hate this. So, I encourage everyone reading to work on their small talk abilities — please learn how to actually talk to people you’ve just met. This doesn’t mean approaching strangers on the street — though sometimes that’s fun to do. But when you want to build any kind of relationship with someone — say a person in one of your classes, a coworker, or even just a random acquaintance — you need to make an effort. Moreover, you need to make it clear that you’re making an effort. If everyone just pretends like they don’t care in order to protect their own feelings, they’re never going to experience the connections they want in their life. They’ll just continue being unfulfilled by their friendships and other relationships, and they’ll stay lonely. Only by being true to yourself can you form a genuine bond, and that’s really all there is to it. 

Isabel Hoch is a sophomore English writing major who obsesses over very specific things for months at a time. If she writes an article about something, it means her friends haven’t heard her shut up about it in weeks. To get in a heated debate over something dumb (or tell her a fun secret), you can email her at irh30@pitt.edu.