one of the crutches many people with poor social skills will often rely on is-- instead of engaging with someone in a pleasant passing exchange and risking potential social embarrassment, however slight-- they will strain themselves to be as aloof and cold as possible. in some cases they will be dismissive and snarky, in other cases they will signal they are busy, they are distracted, they are preoccupied and you are inconveniencing them. they will look at their phone or put on headphones even when they have no music playing and they know they have no notifications. they are putting on the presentation of someone too busy to talk right now.

even if it makes zero sense in the social situation. e.g. someone who is unemployed who is always super busy; or someone who is being painfully snarky when talking to another person who is clearly being warm, friendly, kind, generous, gentle, thoughtful, sincere, etc.

the insecure aloof zillenial will find a way to make anything a marvel avengers tier cringey quip. the aloof zillenial will roll their eyes and scoff even during the course of a totally normal and mundane conversation.

it's very sad to see, because it's very transparent what is happening. and it's transparent because humans are not that complex. we all share the same creature comforts and when we have problems, we tend to break on the same fault lines. we are made of the same stuff. i say this as a livelong introvert who learned social skills the long and hard way. i see plenty of millenials and zoomers using these crutches. i probably would have adopted these crutches myself, but spending my youth on 4chan, it was always reiterated how being cold and snarky around wholesome people was "2deep4u" or "edgy".

modern social media, as we all know, is full of nothing but echo chambers so millenials and zooms that didnt find 4chan are very likely to end up with using this social crutch forever. it doesn't seem like the trend is receding.