I Could Care Less

I gave the Chess Master his epithet because he liked to play games.

Some days he would say hi to me and engage me in conversation. Some days he would smile at me but not talk. Some days he would flirt with other girls in front of my face.

The guy was about as consistent as Little Sister is normal.

Which is why even though the Chess Master made a special effort to keep in touch with me when he went to a different high school, and even though he asked me on my first date (prom, no less), and even though his mother as good as told me that he was madly in love with me, I was never sure because everything he did was so ding-dang confusing.

Had someone honestly asked the Chess Master the reason for his behavior, then his honest answer may have taken the shape of, "To show that I could care less about Awkward Mormon Girl."

"I could care less." If you ever say that phrase in my presence, you may look over and see that my fingers are twitching in a valiant effort not to slap you.

Being a person rather concerned with words, I dislike it when people say, "I could care less," because they are misquoting the phrase, "I couldn't care less."

"I could care less," literally means "It would be possible for me to care less about this," aka you do care, when what you're trying to convey is "It isn't possible for me to care less about this than I already do," aka you don't care one whit, jot, or tittle. To properly convey that you don't care, you need to say, "I couldn't care less."

Got that? Okay, here comes the confusing part. Usually when people say, "I could care less," but they're trying to say, "I couldn't care less," they still really mean "I could care less."

Take the Chess Master. He seemingly behaved in an inconsistent manner because he was trying to inform me, "No, I don't actually have a crush on you. I could care less about you."

Of course we know the phrase he meant was couldn't care less, because he didn't care. He didn't care so much that he went out of his way to show me that he didn't care because HE JUST DIDN'T CARE, OKAY? GOSH!

In other words, when someone gets riled up about something enough to declare, "I could care less!" we can forgive them their grammar errors for, however unintentionally, they are probably speaking the truth.

They probably actually do care. Why else do they try so hard to show that they don't?

Now, the days of the Chess Master are the days of yore aka junior high. In junior high, if you liked someone, you had to play it cool. You had to work hard to show the frosty degree of your extreme apathy. For if the person you liked found out that you liked them, you'd die.

Teenagers are patently stupid, so you'd think they would be the only persons engaging in this kind of contradictory behavior.

You'd think, but adults do it too. Just as much. Maybe more. Every day in many ways, we show that we don't care about the things and ideas and especially people that we care about so much that we feel the need to act like we don't care.

Am I the only person who finds this incredibly stupid and dishonest?

There have been times in my life when I really, truly cared about someone, but I didn't know if they cared about me back. And instead of being proactive and recognizing that it was better to be genuine in my feelings than not, I got caught up in the common trap of being reactive. I had to receive something if I was going to give it. And since I wasn't receiving it, I wasn't gonna give it. So I took a page from the Chess Master's book and very much went out of my way to ignore and pull away from the same person I cared so much about.

It goes without saying that nothing good ever comes from this.

Whenever I've gone the opposite route and chosen to show that I care, I haven't always had that regard reciprocated. I have, however, found a great deal of freedom and peace in allowing myself to be earnest.

Now if you'll excuse me, there are some people I need to go show that I care.

Because really, truly--I could care less.