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8 Ways to Avoid People in Public on Days Where You Just Can't Deal With Humans

The sun can be shining, birds can be chirping and it can still be a day where I manage to have an essence of cynicism embedded into my soul. We are totally allowed to have those days where we hit the snooze button eight times and still wake up perpetually pissed off. On those days, I have learned what it feels like to truly not want any human interaction. It is a sentiment I also experience when I go to my hometown gym, which is basically a giant high school reunion – which is a good and bad thing, but mostly a bad thing.

In these moments, I don’t want to deal with anybody unless they go by the name Jack Daniels, Ben or Jerry. But since it is almost impossible to completely avoid people while in public, I have devised ways to tune them out.

  1. Make an important phone call. Throw in phrases like, “well, wait until I tell Schumer about this one!” and “Tell Tina and Amy I’m sorry I haven’t returned their calls, I’ve just been so busy.” People will automatically assume you’re best friends with some great female comedians and they won’t bother you. Nobody else will know that there is nobody on the receiving end of the line.
  2. Smoke cigarettes, because people really hate that and they’ll be sure to let you know that they are keeping their distance from you in an overdramatic manner.
  3. Compose a novel of a text message. People won’t bother you if they think you’re sending a message of utter importance, so be sure to make it look like you are composing the perfect tweet or sending a text asking Obama if he wants to hang later.
  4. Pretend to be asleep. Obviously this doesn’t work if you are walking, but if you are on public transportation then you can just nod off. Just be sure you don’t actually fall asleep and miss your stop.
  5. Examine your hands and fingernails with great concentration. People will think you’re high and nobody wants to provoke a random high person.
  6. Put in headphones. They don’t even have to be plugged into anything, just put them in your ears and pretend to drown everything out.
  7. Throw some shades on, because people look ten times more intimidating when they are wearing giant ass sunglasses.
  8. Wear a Nickelback t-shirt: that should make you successfully anti-social.