Aversion to the “We” Base

Since I can't ride my electric scooter when it keeps raining, I tried to leave the house early to catch a local train, but the bus from my house to the west station was a few minutes late, so I missed it.

In the end, I'm on the same train as always, but since this one doesn't stop at the station nearest to my office, I'm frustrated from the start of the day, wondering if I'll have to walk for 20 minutes or if the small bus will still be waiting.

Every single day, as I head to work, I get jostled by people and spend my time surrounded by them at the office, but

there is something I'm not good at.

It's conversations with people whose subject is always “we”.

They completely dump the context hidden in that “we” onto the other person.

That “we” might refer to the staff in their department, the entire company, or if it's private, their husband or their whole family.

But even when we're talking one-on-one, it makes me feel uneasy when they speak based on “we” or “you all”.

For example, when they say things like, “Where are you all going for vacation?” or “We are going there and here…,” it feels as if the other person behind them is a fixed entity.

It's as if spending holidays or traveling with a husband or partner is the standard.

For me, someone who likes to quickly go on trips alone or spend time by myself, having to keep listening to that is unbearable.

I basically don't bring up topics about my family or partner, and my subject is always me as an individual; when I tell an episode, I usually talk about a third party as an individual.

Basically, I don't have the concept of “we”.

Even with my family, my way of thinking and behavioral patterns are completely different from theirs, and I have never thought to describe myself and my partner as a single “we,” either now or in the past.

I am me, and in the end, other people are other people, so I cannot speak on behalf of what they are thinking or what they want to do.

Ever since “we” started grating on my ears, listening to it has become unbearable.

In particular, my Swiss colleague in her 50s uses the plural “we” as the subject for almost every conversation, and the only time a third-person singular appears is when she mentions her husband's name, but

once, when I went to a meeting with her to see our boss,
it was such a parade of “we” and “they” that the boss pointed out each time,
“Who do you mean by ‘we’?”
“Who do you mean by ‘they’?”
and it goes without saying that I felt a bit satisfied by that.

I think a “we” base exists in every country, but for me, it is a painful custom.