One time when I was in highschool, I was having those flashbacks. Memories of things I said that made me cringe. So I decided in order to stop creating more of those, I would keep quiet as much as possible. I’d only talk when someone talks to me.
The next day a classmate had a fight with his friend and switched places to sit next to me. I kept my rule and only spoke when spoken to. It was awkward silence the whole day. By the end I saw him moving back to sit with his old friend.
“I thought you were with droning_in_my_ears?”
“I tried, but he doesn’t say anything!”
Damn. Could’ve made a new friend. That’s when I decided better cringe than boring and ended my mute phase.
It sometimes feels unfair, that there’s no easy way to succeed in these situations. The solution seemed easy at first; just talk less. But that introduces more complexity and risks. It’s dumb. I used to feel like everyone else had an easy time deciding when to use these strategies and I just couldn’t get the hang of it