You’ve definitely done it. Maybe not today, maybe not yesterday, but at some point this week, you’ve absolutely committed at least three of the ridiculous things we’re about to discuss. The best part? You’ll never admit to any of them in polite company. We all have these quirky behaviors that feel utterly normal in private but seem borderline absurd when examined in the harsh light of day.

These aren’t deep, dark secrets or embarrassing confessions. They’re the everyday oddities that make us human, the silly little rituals we perform when no one’s watching, and the minor social transgressions we pretend never happened. Let’s pull back the curtain on the funny things literally everyone does but refuses to acknowledge. Spoiler alert: you’re going to feel extremely called out.

The Phone Check Charade

We’ve all mastered the art of checking our phones while pretending we’re not checking our phones. You pull it out, glance at the completely blank lock screen showing zero notifications, then put it back in your pocket. Thirty seconds later, you repeat this exact process as if the notification gods might have blessed you in the interim.

The really hilarious part happens when someone actually catches you mid-check. Suddenly, you’re swiping purposefully, opening random apps, maybe even typing a nonsensical note to yourself, all to justify why you needed to look at your phone right that second. “Just checking the weather,” you mumble, while definitely not checking the weather.

Then there’s the phantom vibration phenomenon. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, so you grab it immediately, only to discover it never vibrated at all. Your leg just twitched. But you still scroll through your notifications anyway because you’re already committed to the action. You might even recognize this from work-from-home moments where you check your phone seventeen times during a single Zoom meeting.

Refrigerator Archaeology

You open the fridge, stare blankly at its contents for twenty seconds, find nothing appealing, then close it. Two minutes later, you’re back, peering into the exact same refrigerator as if magical new food might have materialized in the interim. The items haven’t changed. The milk is still milk. The leftover pasta is still there from Tuesday. Yet somehow you’re hoping for different results.

Even better is when you lower your standards with each successive fridge visit. First trip: “I want something delicious and satisfying.” Third trip: “I guess I could eat this questionable cheese.” Fifth trip: “Is ketchup a meal?” You eventually settle for eating shredded cheese straight from the bag while standing in front of the still-open refrigerator, bathed in its judgmental light.

The pantry version of this involves moving items around as if reorganizing crackers might reveal hidden snacks. You push the canned beans to the left, move the pasta to the right, and somehow convince yourself you’ve conducted a thorough search despite knowing exactly what’s in there because you bought all of it.

The Strategic Eavesdrop

Someone near you is having a fascinating conversation, and you’re absolutely listening to every word while maintaining an elaborate performance of not listening. You stare intently at your own phone, maybe nodding along to imaginary content, while mentally recording every juicy detail of their drama. Your poker face is impeccable. Your ears are working overtime.

The challenge intensifies when they say something truly shocking. You cannot react. You must remain stone-faced, continuing your fake activity while internally screaming “WHAT?!” Every muscle in your body wants to turn and stare, but you’re committed to the charade. You’re a professional accidental spy now.

If you’re with a friend during prime eavesdropping moments, you’ve definitely developed an entire silent communication system. Significant eye contact. Subtle eyebrow raises. The barely perceptible head tilt that means “Are you hearing this?” You’ll dissect every overheard word the moment you’re out of earshot, but right now, you’re both Oscar-worthy actors pretending to discuss the weather.

Search History Panic

The moment someone asks to borrow your phone or use your computer, your brain immediately catalogs every potentially embarrassing thing you’ve recently searched. “How to pronounce quinoa” at age 35. “Do dogs think in barks.” “Why is my ear itchy inside.” “How much does the average cloud weigh.” Normal curiosity suddenly feels like evidence of your weirdness.

You’ve definitely cleared your browser history before letting someone use your device, not because you were looking at anything genuinely problematic, but because you searched “what year was I born” when you momentarily forgot your own age. Or you looked up the lyrics to verify whether it’s “take a sad song and make it better” or “take a sad song and make a butter,” and you’re not ready to explain that level of overthinking.

The related behavior involves typing something into Google, getting autocomplete suggestions that are even weirder than your query, and feeling weirdly validated that enough people searched the same thing for Google to suggest it. “Do penguins have knees” gets suggested after “do penguins,” which means you’re not alone in your urgent penguin anatomy questions at 2 AM.

The Conversation Replay

An hour after any social interaction, you’re mentally replaying the entire conversation, analyzing everything you said, and cringing at approximately 40% of it. “Why did I tell that story about my grocery store incident? Why did I laugh at that volume? Did I pronounce ‘hyperbole’ correctly or did I say ‘hyper-bowl’ like an idiot?”

You absolutely rehearse conversations before they happen, too. You script witty responses to questions no one will ask. You prepare interesting anecdotes for parties you haven’t been invited to yet. You’ve won arguments in the shower that will never take place in real life. Your imaginary conversational skills are exceptional. Your actual performance will be nothing like the rehearsal.

The worst version involves remembering something embarrassing you said three years ago, at a party where nobody else even remembers you were there, and physically wincing in present day. You might even say “no” or “stop” out loud to your own brain, as if you can retroactively prevent past-you from making that mediocre joke about cheese. Similar to those awkward moments everyone’s lived through, these mental replays serve absolutely no purpose except self-torture.

The Sneaky Sample

You’re cooking dinner, and you absolutely must taste-test the shredded cheese to ensure it’s still good. Then you need another piece to confirm the first piece’s findings. By the fourth “sample,” you’re just eating handfuls of cheese and lying to yourself about quality control. The same logic applies to chocolate chips when baking. “I need to verify these are the good kind” is code for “I’m going to eat 30 chips and then add more to the recipe so no one notices.”

The grocery store sample situation takes this to new levels. You see those little sample cups at the fancy cheese counter, and suddenly you’re very interested in trying seven different varieties despite planning to buy none of them. You nod thoughtfully between samples, making contemplative faces as if conducting serious cheese research. You will leave empty-handed but full-stomached.

Everyone’s also guilty of the “one more won’t hurt” mentality with any food that comes in small, poppable formats. Grapes, crackers, nuts, candy, leftover popcorn. You keep reaching into the bag while doing other things, insisting you’re barely eating any, until suddenly the container is empty and you genuinely don’t remember eating it all. Time to hide the evidence.

The Social Media Scroll Spiral

You open Instagram, scroll to the bottom of new posts, close the app, then immediately reopen it as if your muscle memory has completely bypassed your conscious decision-making. You’ve seen everything. There’s nothing new. Yet here you are, refreshing the same feed you looked at eight seconds ago, hoping for different content.

You’ve definitely scrolled past the same post three times before your brain registered you already saw it. Sometimes you even like it twice, unlike it quickly when you realize your mistake, and hope the person didn’t get a notification. You’re operating on autopilot, thumb scrolling while your brain thinks about completely different things, like what you’re making for dinner or whether you need to do laundry.

The most relatable moment happens when you catch yourself wasting time on social media, feel guilty about it, close the app with determination, then immediately open a different social media app as if that’s somehow more productive. TikTok to Instagram to Twitter in rapid succession, achieving absolutely nothing except confirming that you’re bored and seeking entertainment that doesn’t require actual effort. Much like those funny tweets that perfectly capture modern life, these moments of social media absurdity unite us all.

The Pretend Sleep

Someone enters the room while you’re lying down, and you instantly commit to pretending you’re asleep. Eyes closed, breathing regulated, completely still despite being wide awake three seconds ago. You’re not sure why you’re doing this. You weren’t doing anything wrong. Yet here you are, method-acting sleep for no clear reason except avoiding human interaction.

The related behavior involves staying completely silent when someone knocks on the bathroom door, as if they’ll assume the occupied bathroom has spontaneously become unoccupied if you don’t announce your presence. They clearly know someone’s in there. The lock is engaged. But you’re sitting in complete silence like a bathroom ninja, hoping they’ll simply forget their urgent need and wander away.

You’ve also definitely pretended to be busy on your phone when someone you vaguely know approaches in public. You’re suddenly very invested in reading invisible text messages, scrolling with intense focus, radiating “please don’t make small talk with me” energy while hoping they pass by without recognition. If they do stop to chat, you act completely surprised, as if you definitely weren’t aware of your surroundings and absolutely weren’t actively avoiding them.

The Double-Check Obsession

You locked the door. You know you locked it. You specifically remember turning the key and testing the handle. Yet here you are, three steps away, turning back to check again because your brain has suddenly decided that maybe you only imagined locking it. The same phenomenon applies to turning off the stove, unplugging the iron, and closing the garage door.

Email sending creates its own special anxiety. You proofread carefully, click send, then immediately check your sent folder to confirm the email actually sent and didn’t contain any horrifying typos you somehow missed during the seven times you proofread it. Sometimes you even reopen the sent email to verify the attachment you definitely attached is actually there, despite seeing the attachment icon before sending.

The alarm check might be the most universal. You set your alarm for 7 AM, then check it seventeen more times before actually sleeping because what if you accidentally set it for 7 PM instead? What if you set it for the wrong day? What if you somehow turned it off instead of on? You trust nothing, least of all your own ability to successfully configure an alarm clock you’ve used daily for years. This paranoid perfectionism shows up in those moments when you’re becoming your parents, obsessively checking locks and appliances with increasing frequency.

The Strategic Avoidance

You see someone you know in public, make eye contact, then both of you pretend you didn’t see each other. You’re now committed to elaborate avoidance maneuvers. You study products you have zero interest in buying. You take the long route around aisles. You’ve never been so fascinated by light bulb options in your entire life. The unspoken agreement is clear: we both want to shop in peace without obligatory small talk.

Phone calls from unknown numbers get sent straight to voicemail with zero guilt. If it’s important, they’ll leave a message. If it’s not important, you’ve successfully avoided a conversation about your car’s extended warranty. You’ll google the number afterward to confirm it was indeed spam, feeling validated in your decision to ignore it.

You’ve definitely let emails sit in your inbox for days, not because you’re too busy to respond, but because you’re crafting the perfect reply in your head and haven’t committed it to writing yet. The longer you wait, the more elaborate your imaginary response becomes, until you’re paralyzed by the gap between your mental draft and your actual ability to type it out. Eventually, you send three sentences and call it good enough.

The Snack Stealth

Opening any package of food as quietly as possible when everyone else is asleep has become an Olympic sport. That chip bag sounds like a fireworks display at 11 PM. You’re using precision techniques, carefully pulling the edges apart millimeter by millimeter, while simultaneously wondering why you’re sneaking snacks in your own home like a criminal. You paid for this food. This is your kitchen. Yet here you are, conducting a covert candy operation.

The freezer raid at midnight requires similar tactical precision. You’ve got to extract the ice cream, get a spoon, and consume your feelings without alerting anyone to your late-night dessert habits. The spoon can’t clink against the bowl. Your footsteps must be silent. You’re basically a highly trained operative whose sole mission is eating Ben & Jerry’s in complete darkness without detection.

You’ve also perfected the art of eating something while standing in front of the pantry with the door open, as if closing the door would mean committing to the snack. As long as you’re “just looking,” you can pretend you’re not stress-eating crackers at 3 PM. The moment you sit down with the box, it becomes official snacking. Standing consumption doesn’t count. These are the rules we’ve made up to feel better about our choices.

These ridiculous behaviors connect us all in our shared humanity. Nobody’s admitting to these things in casual conversation, but everyone’s absolutely doing them behind closed doors, in grocery stores, and during awkward social encounters. The next time you catch yourself checking your phone for the fifteenth time in three minutes or pretending to sleep when your roommate walks in, just remember: you’re not weird. You’re just human. And humans are hilariously, wonderfully absurd creatures who will never, ever admit to any of this.