Underneath
What's going on underneath #
Three things that tend to sit under the words.
Once likes are counted, not liking becomes a thing that was done rather than a thing that simply didn't happen, and the scrolling of the last few days now seems to need explaining.
Long before posts, other things got counted: who came to whose birthday, who called on the big days of the year, who sent a box of sweets and who only sent a message.
Underneath, a rule can form: “I have to keep everyone happy,” or its online form: “If I don't react, I've done something wrong.”
Reactions
What people often do #
- Say “I didn't see it!” straight away, whatever the truth was
- Go back and like it on the spot, while they watch
- Start liking everything they post from now on, just in case
- Feel a flash of irritation, and laugh along anyway
- Replay it later, wondering what else has been noticed
The deck
The story in 6 cards #
Six short cards, from the moment to letting go.
'Why didn't you like my post?'
Tuesday evening in Kuala Lumpur. A message pops up from your cousin: 'why didn't you like my post?' You hadn't even seen it. You reply quickly, 'sorry! just saw it', and like it. Then you scroll through her other posts, liking a few more, just in case. You put the phone down feeling oddly tired and a little guilty. The feeling lingers longer than you expect.
Keep everyone happy online
Underneath sits a rule: 'I have to keep everyone happy online.' It sounds kind and caring. Most people would nod along to it. Plenty of people live by it without a second thought. But look at what it does: it turns social media into a duty. Every post becomes a task, every missed like a small debt, and your scrolling time becomes work.
Why keeping people happy feels safe
We hold it because keeping people happy feels like keeping relationships safe. Lots of people grow up with some version of this rule, and it often made good sense at the time. Maybe you've been told off before for not reacting. Maybe you care a lot about not hurting anyone. Either way, wanting to keep the peace isn't silly. It comes from caring. That deserves kindness, not blame.
The pressure of every post
Each 'why didn't you like it?' adds a little pressure. None of it shows from the outside, but you feel it. Bit by bit, it all adds up. You start checking everyone's posts so you don't miss any. You like things you haven't really looked at. You feel guilty for missing things. Social media starts to feel like a job, and you feel more tired after scrolling than before.
Is keeping up worth it?
Ask yourself honestly: has liking everything ever made you feel closer to people? Or has it mostly made scrolling feel like a chore? Most people miss posts all the time, and real closeness shows up in other ways. Take a moment with it, if you like. Either way, a missing like isn't the measure of how much you care. Is holding this rule so tightly worth it?
A like isn't the measure of care
Letting go doesn't mean you stop caring about the people you follow. It means a missing like no longer has to feel like a debt. You can react when you want to, and miss things sometimes. Nothing else has to change first. That's where some peace comes back: your attention becomes yours again, and care shows up where it matters.
Where someone really does take a missing like badly, with threats or anger that frightens you, that is worth taking seriously, and going along with it for a while can be sensible.
The flip
The old rule, and a new one to try #
The old ruleI have to keep everyone happy online.
A new rule to tryA missing like isn't the measure of my care.
Three small days
Try it for 3 days #
- Day 1
Spend one day without checking anyone's posts
- Day 2
Like something only because you enjoyed it
- Day 3
Notice one real-life way you show people you care
Want to talk it through?
“What did you say back in that moment, and what would you have said with a minute to think?”
Free and private. No sign-up to start. The chat opens with this question.
Everything this deck knows
Go deeper #
What it sounds like, where it comes from, what it costs, and other ways to see it. Every question opens a chat on it.
How it lands
What was said
A light question that turns a scroll into a debt #
A cousin at Sunday lunch, half laughing: “Why didn't you like my post?” A school friend's message: “You saw my story and didn't react.” A friend over coffee in Dubai Marina: “I liked yours, you didn't like mine.” It's said lightly, and then everyone waits.
It sounds like a question about a tap on a screen. But it turns a scroll into something to account for, and a small thing that was never really decided, liking or not liking, into something that now seems to need a reason.
When were you last asked something like it?Talk about this ›
Where were you standing, and who else was there, and what did you say back before you had time to think?Talk about this ›
The first few seconds
Why an excuse arrives before the thought #
Some people feel a quick jolt of being caught out, though nothing was done. A laugh comes out too fast, an explanation arrives before the question has finished: “I didn't see it!” Others go blank, or feel a small flare of irritation and smile anyway.
Being asked to explain something tends to put people on the back foot, even when there is nothing to explain. Some people answer a question like this as if it were an accusation, because in that second it can feel like one.
What did you do in the second after the question: explain, apologise, joke, or go quiet?Talk about this ›
And what might that first move say about how much this person's opinion weighs with you?Talk about this ›
Why it lands
Half a second, given weight after the fact #
A like takes half a second and often means very little. The question gives it weight after the fact, so the missing half-second is suddenly read as a message, and the person who was asked is left to say what that message was.
It can also turn attention into a debt. Once likes are counted, not liking becomes a thing that was done rather than a thing that simply didn't happen, and the scrolling of the last few days now seems to need explaining.
If you had to say what the missing like actually meant, what would the honest answer be?Talk about this ›
And how does it compare with the answer you gave in the moment?Talk about this ›
The voice inside
When a quiet monitor switches on #
After a question like that, a quiet monitor can switch on. “Like it now, before it gets noticed.” “Better react to the story too.” “What if they think I'm upset with them?” Some people find themselves tapping hearts on posts they barely looked at.
The lunch is long over, but the monitor keeps running, keeping a tally of who posted, who saw, who reacted. Because it sounds like being thoughtful, it can be hard to tell apart from simply being a good friend or a good cousin.
Whose voice is it that says a like is owed?Talk about this ›
Is it yours, or one you picked up from a particular person, long before any of this happened on a phone?Talk about this ›
Where it comes from
Where it can come from
Long before likes, other things got counted #
Long before posts, other things got counted: who came to whose birthday, who called on the big days of the year, who sent a box of sweets and who only sent a message. Some people grew up where showing up was carefully noticed, and missing it was remembered.
In some families, keeping track was simply part of how things worked, and the reasons vary from home to home. What a child can take from it is that attention is watched, and that a gap in it is likely to be asked about.
When did you first learn that someone was keeping an eye on who paid attention to whom?Talk about this ›
Who did the noticing, and how did you learn to stay on the right side of it?Talk about this ›
The belief under it
A quiet rule about who is owed attention #
Underneath, a rule can form: “I have to keep everyone happy,” or its online form: “If I don't react, I've done something wrong.” Some people hear a third one under both: “My attention isn't really mine to give.”
Rules like these tend to feel like manners rather than rules, the way answering a greeting feels like something that is simply done. That is why they are worth taking out and looking at now and then, away from the phone.
Some people trace a rule like this back to early years; some don't. Either way, it can be looked at: if attention is counted, give enough of it.
Which friendships does it still fit, and which not?Talk about this ›
What it costs
What it costs
What keeping the count can cost #
It can mean scrolling as a duty, liking posts on autopilot, checking stories at midnight so nobody can say they were skipped. Some people start to feel a small drop when a particular name appears, and scroll more carefully when it does.
There is a quieter price too. When every tap can be counted, the phone stops being a place to look at things and becomes a place to keep up. Over a year, that can add up to a great deal of attention spent on being seen to pay attention.
None of this is silly; keeping up with everyone takes real effort.
What has it cost in the last year: evenings spent catching up on stories, a friendship that now feels a little like an account?Talk about this ›
If it stays as it is
Five more years of keeping up #
Picture one ordinary Tuesday on a day when “if I don't react, I've done something wrong” is loud. What is in it: the scrolling, the tapping, the stories watched out of duty? It's only a picture to look at, nothing to fix.
Maybe it holds hearts added on a bus without looking, a story viewed at midnight so it counts as seen, a quick check of who reacted to your own post, a pause before posting in case someone keeps count. Some of it may be familiar.
Nothing here needs an answer yet, and the picture can be set aside at any moment. Looking is enough for now. What, if anything, catches your eye in it?
Another way to see it
Another way to see it
One of the smallest signals people have #
A like is one of the smallest signals people have, and it gets used in very different ways. Some people like everything; some like almost nothing; some watch every story and never react. What a missing like says can depend on who is scrolling, and on what kind of day it is.
Seen that way, the question is about a tap, not about the whole friendship. Ties between people can show in many places besides a post: a call, a visit, a question remembered from weeks ago.
Which of those places matter most to you?Talk about this ›
Another way in: if a close friend had been asked the same thing by the same person, what would you think a reasonable answer looked like?Talk about this ›
Noticing it sooner
What people notice when they look again #
When some people look at the moment again, they notice the question itself was the loud part, not the missing like. Before it was asked, nothing had happened; afterwards, something seemed to need explaining.
Others notice how many posts they do react to, from this person and others, and how rarely those get counted. And sometimes looking again shows something real: that this person does keep careful track, and that it weighs on things between you. Either is worth knowing.
What did the question tell you about the friendship that you hadn't quite seen before, if anything?Talk about this ›
And what, about the two of you, did it leave out?Talk about this ›
Making peace with it
No need to keep a perfect record #
Making peace with it doesn't mean promising to like every post, or deciding the question was silly. It means one question gets less say over how, when and why you use your own phone.
Some people find it lighter once they stop trying to keep a perfect record. There is no score that stays level for everyone at once, and chasing one keeps a tally running in the background of every scroll.
Where someone really does take a missing like badly, that is worth taking seriously, and going along with it for a while can be the sensible thing.
What would it be like to let your attention be yours again, while still caring about the person?Talk about this ›
A truer sentence
A line that gives your attention back #
If “I owe everyone a reaction” has been running for years, there's no need to fight it head on. Some people keep a plainer line ready instead: “Scrolling past isn't a statement. My attention can be mine.”
It doesn't have to feel true, and it isn't something to say out loud to anyone. It's only a line some people try on privately, and some find it takes up a little of the room the old rule used to fill.
What would a truer sentence be in your own words, one that is honest about the friendship, kind to them and still lets your phone be your own?Talk about this ›
What to let be
Some of it can simply be put down #
Not every question about a like needs a long explanation, an apology, or a new habit of reacting to everything. Some of it can be noticed, felt for a moment, and put down, like a receipt dropped in the bin on the way home.
That isn't giving up on the friendship. It's choosing where attention goes, and some people say it leaves more room for the posts they really wanted to see, and for the people they enjoy talking to off the screen.
Putting it down for the evening doesn't mean it was fine, or that it's settled. It only means the question doesn't have to come along into every scroll, every story and every name that pops up tonight.
If it loosened
And if the rule loosened, even a notch #
Imagine, only as a picture, the rule a notch quieter. A like is a like, and scrolling past is scrolling past. What is the first thing that feels different, even slightly?
Small things can be enough, such as a slow scroll that's just for fun, a post enjoyed without reacting, or a familiar name popping up without the small jolt. What would your first small thing be?
Nothing here needs to be said to anyone. Whatever comes up belongs to you, and is worth noticing. If you'd like to talk it through, a chat is one tap away.
Small things to try
Something to try
A few small things people try #
- Name it in your head: “that's the like-counter again”
- Ask yourself quietly: am I tapping this because I want to, or to stay covered?
- Notice one post today that you enjoyed without reacting to it
- Think of one friend with whom likes never come up at all
- Notice one small thing you wanted today, however small
Small, private and all optional. Try whichever one feels doable.
Pick a question
Talk it through #
Tap one. A chat with Dr. Thoughts opens on that question: free, private, no sign-up to start.
- What did you say back in that moment, and what would you have said with a minute to think?
- Who in your life first taught you that attention gets counted?
- What did that question make you want to do with your phone for the rest of the day?
- On an ordinary day when the like-counting rule is loud, what would you still be putting off?
- If the counting eased a little, what would you notice first?