What is feeling "no way?"

We’ve created a society that thinks having feelings is a commodity. If you’re a person who wears your heart on your sleeve, you’ve most likely been told that you’re too sensitive, too emotional, or just plain too much. A majority of us young adults have bought into the idea that a normal part of human behavior, expressing emotion, is something that must be suppressed and have even turned it into a game. If you’re the one who is feeling no ways or seems to be feeling nothing, you’re winning the game. If you’re the one who is feeling a way or expressing whatever you’re feeling, as you’re feeling it, you’re losing the game.

Building a “feel no ways” façade can seem appealing if you’ve been emotionally abused or hurt in the past by a significant other, friend or family member and you want to protect yourself from being hurt again. Using this façade makes you feel like a winner in the “game” that you’ve lost in the past, but it just drives away and hurts the people in your life who do care about what you’re feeling (yes, there are still people who care). This can cause those people to feel like they need to not care so much and start feeling no way too, which creates a cycle that feeds into the idea that having feelings is a commodity.

We’ve gotten accustomed to ignoring situations that bring out our emotions or the emotions of others. We’ve started avoiding serious relationships and meaningful friendships because those mean we will become emotionally vulnerable. Being emotionally vulnerable eventually leads to conflicts because as we all know, no two people agree on everything. We’ve conditioned ourselves to think that not confronting these situations is better than facing conflicting emotions we may have with someone. Instead, we use passive-aggressive tactics to get our points across, communicate mixed emotions, lie, and just hold it all in. This causes our emotions toward these people and situations to build up to a point that usually causes an unnecessary breakdown. Often, the people around us that are feeling a way feel like something they’re doing is wrong when this happens, even though the source of these problems is caused by the other person feeling no ways.

How to be a person who feels "a way" in a world full of people who feel "no ways"

Avoid those people who are feeling no ways. You will never be able to have any sort of healthy relationship with them. When someone feels no ways, they don’t care if you do feel a way, about anything, and will often put you down whenever you express the ways you’re feeling. When you do have a healthy relationship with someone, you can express the ways you feel with someone and they will validate your feelings, whether they agree with them or not. People who feel no ways will most likely not be there to hear the ways you feel, and when they are, they put you down for them, especially when they don’t agree with your feelings.

You are not alone. Although there seems to be a lot of people out there that feel no ways, there are also a lot of people who are still feeling a way, too; find those people and hold onto them. Don’t be afraid to make friends with strangers. Don’t be afraid to fall in love. As someone who often feels a few too many ways, I have found that the more times you fall, the less it hurts each time. Being open allows you to know what you want when you want it, and you will be able to easily distinguish between just liking someone and really loving someone. You understand that even if someone else is feeling ways, they may not be feeling any ways toward you, even though you feel a lot of ways towards them. And that's OK. Moving on is easy because it’s probably not the first time this has happened to you.

Don’t let anyone tear you down or belittle you for feeling a way. Wearing your heart on your sleeve can be seen as a vulnerability to people who feel no ways. Understand that when you wear your heart on your sleeve, you know exactly where it is and what you’re doing with it. When someone makes you upset, you tell them. When someone makes you happy, you tell them. When you love someone, you tell them. Disclosing all your emotions ensures that you have no regrets. You will never ask yourself things like, “Should I have tried harder?” when it comes to romantic and platonic relationships because you will already know that you’ve said and done everything you can and that you’ve already tried your hardest.

What to do if you’re recovering from feeling "no ways"

If you’re someone who has been pushing away those of us who feel a way, writing off your own feelings and barring yourself off from any type of emotion and you have realized you may be wrong, an apology is your best friend. I know, admitting you were wrong destroys that inflated ego you’ve been blowing up this entire time. You may feel a little uncomfortable deflating that ego balloon, but now is not the time to be selfish. Apologize to the people who have been there for you and supported you while you’ve been pushing them away because they cared about your feelings more than you did. Apologize to the people you’ve been sending mixed signals to because you cared about them but were too busy feeling no ways to communicate what they meant to you. Apologize to the people you’ve decided to ignore completely because you were too busy feeling no ways to tell them you just weren’t interested in their company. Apologize to the people that you took all those pent-up feelings out on that now feel like they did something wrong, all because you were feeling no ways. Take care of all the collateral damage you may have caused others while you were feeling no ways, and then start focusing on teaching yourself how to feel some ways again.

Start going out of your way for the people in your life that you care about; it’s the little things that count. Small gestures that show people how much you really care about them go a long way and will make you both feel some type of way.

Learn to be OK with being selfless. Understand that love sometimes means putting up with things you do not wholeheartedly agree with. You are still able to love someone even if you don’t see eye to eye all the time.

Communicate your feelings clearly. If something somebody says or does makes you angry, offended, sad, happy, uncomfortable or disgusted, tell them. I know, it seems so simple, that’s because it is. If you express your feelings openly with someone, otherwise known as feel a way, it will let that other person know it’s safe to feel a way around you. If you can’t be bothered to listen to the way another person is feeling, ask yourself these questions:

Is this someone I care about?

Is this someone who frequently expresses that they care about me?

Is this someone who frequently goes out of their way to ensure I am OK?

Does this person frequently apologize in simple interactions with me because I am passive aggressive toward them?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are still experiencing symptoms of feeling no ways and need to understand that being a shoulder to cry on to someone who lets you cry on their shoulder is part of being a decent human being. If you do listen to someone who is sharing the ways they feel with you, and you try to invalidate and disregard what they're saying, you're continuing to feed into the idea that there is something wrong with feeling a way.

If you answered no to ALL of these questions, you’re probably talking to a stranger that has a tendency to overshare to everyone and you should politely tell them that they are making you uncomfortable.

If you read this article and thought, “Ew, feelings? Emotions? Disgusting.” Your thoughts are likely a product of the society you live in telling you that your expression of feelings makes you weak. It’s OK to talk about having feelings, and it does not make you weak. What makes you weak is holding back something that makes us all human: emotions. Go ahead and unapologetically feel all the ways and don’t be selfish when someone else is feeling all the ways, too.

As someone who has gone from feeling no ways to feeling all the ways, I can honestly say, holding yourself back in fear of getting hurt or being rejected is way worse than just wearing your heart on your sleeve. Rejection can make you sad, but to be sad for a while, know where you stand in the crowd, be true to who you are and what you feel, and ultimately find inner peace and happiness is much more satisfying than trying to win some game of who can care the least.