I Stopped Apologizing For Existing. Here's What Happened.

That moment when you realize other people's comfort with your existence isn't your responsibility.

I'm standing at the egg refrigerator in Smith’s, reaching for a dozen large browns, when another woman approaches the same door. I got there first—not dramatically first, but clearly first—so I keep going. Grab my eggs, turn to leave.

She's in a huff.

Not just annoyed. Actively huffy. Like I've committed some grievous social sin by... following basic first-come-first-served logic in the dairy section.

My first instinct is immediate and automatic: apologize. Explain that I didn't see her coming. Clarify that I wasn't trying to be rude. Manage her emotional reaction to my perfectly reasonable behavior.

Then something shifts.

I think: wait, I got here first. There's no line. There are plenty of eggs. I grabbed mine quickly and even tried to hold the door open for her afterward, which she ignored.

So instead of apologizing for existing in a grocery store, I just... don't.

I let her think whatever she's going to think. I mind my business. I move on.

It feels almost liberating.

The Exhaustion of Constant Translation

I noticed lately that I spend an embarrassing amount of energy trying to be perfectly legible to strangers who have already decided what my behavior means.

The person behind me in the coffee shop who sighs when I take an extra thirty seconds to decide between oat milk and almond milk. The neighbor who assumes I'm antisocial because I don't wave enthusiastically enough when we pass on our walks. The colleague who thinks I'm being difficult when I ask clarifying questions about a project.

Each time, my first instinct is the same: explain myself. Clarify my intentions. Translate my perfectly reasonable behavior into language that will make them comfortable with my existence.

But here's what I'm learning from the egg incident: some misunderstandings aren't worth the energy it costs to correct them.

Every "what I meant was..." is a withdrawal from your energy account. Every over-explanation is life force spent on managing someone else's interpretation of your basic human choices.

We've confused being understood with being consumed.

The Invisible Committee of Other People's Comfort

The woman at the egg fridge doesn't know me. She doesn't know that I'm recovering from a brain injury that makes social situations more confusing than they used to be. She doesn't know that I was genuinely trying to be polite by holding the door. She doesn't know anything about my intentions or my character or my general approach to grocery store etiquette.

And she doesn't need to.

But somewhere along the way, I learned that other people's comfort with my behavior is my responsibility. That if someone misinterprets my actions, it's my job to clarify. That good people are readable people, and being misunderstood is evidence that I haven't been clear enough, kind enough, accommodating enough.

What if that's backwards?

What if the person huffing about egg fridge protocol is responsible for managing their own emotional reaction to my perfectly reasonable choice to grab eggs when I got to the door first?

What if I don't owe strangers a user manual for my basic existence?

The Liberation of "Ya Know What, Whatever"

There's something powerful about that moment when you stop trying to control how other people interpret you. Not because you don't care about being understood, but because you finally recognize the difference between misunderstandings worth clarifying and misunderstandings that cost more energy than they're worth.

This isn't about authenticity or finding yourself. I wasn't having an identity crisis at the egg fridge. I was just grabbing eggs, following basic social logic, being a normal human in a grocery store. The transformation had nothing to do with who I really am and everything to do with recognizing that I don't have to manage other people's interpretations of my perfectly ordinary behavior.

But here's what I thought in that moment: "Ya know what, whatever."

The woman at Smith’s can think I'm rude. She can tell her friends about the inconsiderate person who cut in front of her at the egg fridge (which isn't even what happened, but I’m prepared). She can construct an entire narrative about my character based on thirty seconds of grocery store interaction.

And I can just... let her.

Not because I'm callous or don't care about other people's feelings, but because her interpretation of my behavior isn't actually about me. It's about whatever she brought to that moment—her day, her expectations, her own relationship with being seen and accommodated.

I tried to be nice anyway. I held the door. I grabbed my eggs quickly. I didn't take more than my share or block anyone's access.

Her huffiness isn't my problem to solve.

The Myth of Perfect Legibility

We've been sold this fiction that healthy people are consistently readable. That good relationships require total transparency. That being misunderstood is always a communication failure that needs to be fixed.

But what if some of our most authentic moments happen when we stop trying to be perfectly digestible to everyone around us?

What if the parts of us that resist easy interpretation aren't problems to solve but information about our complexity?

I'm different in different contexts, with different people, in different moods. The version of me that exists at work isn't the same as the version that exists at home, which isn't the same as the version that exists in grocery stores where I apparently break unwritten rules about egg fridge etiquette.

This isn't inconsistency. It's accuracy.

Sometimes I need interpreters. Sometimes I need to be open to interpretation. Sometimes my perfectly reasonable behavior gets misread, and the misreading says more about the reader than about me.

And I'm learning to be comfortable with that.

The Energy You Get to Keep

Here's what happened after the egg incident: I went about my shopping feeling lighter. Not because conflict energizes me, but because I'd finally experienced what it felt like to not spend energy managing a stranger's emotional reaction to my existence.

I didn't replay the interaction seventeen times, wondering if I could have handled it better. I didn't craft explanations for behavior that didn't need explaining. I didn't absorb responsibility for someone else's huffiness.

I just... kept my energy for myself. And energy, it turns out, is where aliveness lives.

When you stop bleeding life force into other people's need for you to be perfectly legible, something comes alive in you. Not because you're being more authentic or discovering your true self, but because you're finally inhabiting your own existence instead of constantly translating it for others.

This is what I'm talking about when I say misunderstood is the new black. Not the drama of being wrongly interpreted, but the quiet liberation of not needing to be rightly interpreted by everyone who encounters you.

Some people will get you immediately, without explanation. Others will misread you no matter how carefully you communicate. Most will land somewhere in between, understanding pieces but not the whole picture.

And that's fine.

You don't have to be perfectly legible to move through the world. You don't owe strangers your energy just because they've decided your behavior means something it doesn't. You don't have to apologize for taking up space in ways that make perfect sense but don't match other people's expectations.

The Choice We Make Every Day

Every day, in small moments and large ones, we face the same choice I faced at the egg refrigerator: Do we spend our energy trying to control how other people interpret us? Or do we trust that our intentions are good, our behavior is reasonable, and other people's comfort with our existence isn't our responsibility?

The woman at Smith’s taught me something I didn't expect to learn in the dairy section: sometimes the most radical act of self-care is just minding your own business. Sometimes aliveness is as simple as not apologizing for taking up space in ways that make perfect sense.

Let them think what they're going to think. You know who you are. You know what you intended. You tried to be nice anyway.

The rest is just other people's stuff.

And other people's stuff isn't your energy to spend.

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About Alex

I’m Alex Lovell — political psychologist, yoga therapist, and writer.

Lived homeless. Been divorced. Survived a seven-car pileup with a semi. Fell in love with questions that don’t have easy answers. I’ve met a lot of thresholds. Even the one before death.

These days, I split my time between research, writing, and holding space for people figuring out who they are after everything shifted.

This Substack is where I make sense of things out loud.
I write for people in transition — between roles, beliefs, relationships, selves.
The ones quietly wondering, “What now?” but allergic to one-size-fits-all answers.

Sometimes I quote research. Sometimes I quote my own nervous system.
One speaks in data, the other in sensation. I’ve stopped choosing sides.

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