There’s a measured reason you’ll replay one awkward thing you said for days while no one else even remembers it happened — psychologists call it the spotlight effect, our habit of wildly overestimating how much others notice us, and it eases the moment you realize everyone’s too busy starring in their own

There’s a measured reason you’ll replay one awkward thing you said for days while no one else even remembers it happened — psychologists call it the spotlight effect, our habit of wildly overestimating how much others notice us, and it eases the moment you realize everyone’s too busy starring in their own

It’s 2 a.m. and your brain, unprompted, brings up the moment again. The thing where you said too much — went a beat past where you should’ve stopped, told the story that was a little too personal for how well you know these people, watched it land in a small silence before someone changed the subject. And the way you’ve turned it over maybe forty times since, each pass a fresh little wince. But, honestly? You are the only person running it. The …