GBA Lifestyle News
All Tea No Shade with Andrea Lo
I leave group chats when I feel they don’t serve any positive purpose.
Drama! But alas, not really.
In these strange times, so much human interaction is done digitally. I value the time I spend catching up with friends, and I look forward to long calls and late-night FaceTime sessions. (Shout out to the Quarry Baes group chat!)
But just because we relish connecting with people while in semi-lockdown doesn’t mean we have to put up with conversations that at best, don’t stimulate us, and at worst, we find painful.
When you leave a group chat, you may or may not hear these sentences come your way: “Oh, you didn’t know? Yeah, we said it in the group chat.”
At first, when I hear these things, I feel a little guilty. And salty. But then, eventually, I feel liberated.
Once you make your exit, you have to understand that you’re somewhat excommunicating yourself from at least 80 percent of the plans made in there. And of course, 100 percent of their conversations.
But that’s why you wanted to leave in the first place, isn’t it? To be free of all that incessant chatter that you want no part of.
What constitutes interesting conversation means different things for different people. And while common interests are a big reason we bond, it is okay to not be into the same things as those you surround yourself with.
There’s so much etiquette supposedly surrounding exiting a group chat, with debates about whether it’s a power move or a petty move.
Newsflash, though: you can still be friends with some, or all, of the people in the group chat in real life. It might be a novel, or even shocking, idea — but you’re allowed to reach out to and make plans with people who are not in your group chat.
So if you ever find yourself confronting such a situation, feel free to press that “leave group” button, and don’t look back.
Love it? Hate it? Tell Andrea all about it: andrea@theloophk.com.
