Social Jealousy

Isn’t it surprising how little it takes to trigger social jealousy? Someone’s snapchat story. A passing comment. Seeing people’s shared location. Just a tiny spark can get your brain sprinting ahead, jumping to conclusions.

And the biggest conclusion? They don’t like you. They didn’t want to see you.

And the terrible part? That could be true. It’s probably not. But it could be. I mean we all know people we’d rather not hang out with. What if that’s me?

I’d like to be able to present a solution. Some way around this. But I don’t think I’ve found one yet.

I guess you have to feel more secure in yourself? More secure in the fact that your self-worth comes from yourself, and not from other people.

But on the other hand, humans are pack animals. As much as we like to deny it, our happiness is extremely tied to how the other members of the pack feel about us. So when it feels like the rest of the pack is leaving us behind, there’s an innate fear of being left in the cold that must go back to our less constantly-logical-thinking ancestors.

So maybe the best I can do is just to acknowledge it. To not let it sweep me off my feet, but to instead stand and weather the gust and wait for it to pass.

Something will happen soon where I’ll feel like the king of the world, socially. And then something will trigger that social jealousy again.

These things go up and down, I try to remind myself. And if you find yourself at a down, you’ll probably find yourself at an up soon enough.