We need "read-but-reply-randomly" to achieve more equal relationships, and we also need sincere communication to maintain closer relationships.

You have a cousin who just graduated from university last year and stayed in the big city to find a job. In your eyes, she is glamorous, but in the mouths of relatives, she is an "unfilial daughter" who is "getting on in years and still has no partner." So, from New Year's Eve to the Lantern Festival, every batch of visiting relatives would urge her on, openly or implicitly. In previous years, faced with this situation, your cousin would frown and stay silent, but this year she interrupted everyone and began to hold forth: "You have such a high-speed running machine entering China, remember the principle I gave when I was little..."

She talked for several minutes before stopping. You didn't understand, and turning your head, you saw that the relatives also seemed to half-understand, but they all stopped pressing, and some even nodded in praise: "As expected of a university student back from the big city, she's getting better and better at talking, she's really got something after working!" Then they turned and launched a barrage of questions at your male cousin.

At this point, you noticed that your younger sister, who had always been "chuunibyou" and ignored everyone, moved over to your cousin, whispered a few words to her, and they smiled at each other. Huh, did she understand? Is this some kind of "secret code" that only they understand? After the relatives left, you learned from them that this is a new technique young people have recently developed for dealing with relatives—"read-but-reply-randomly," which means saying a bunch of things that seem very reasonable but actually have no logical connection. The passage your cousin recited was copied verbatim from the most popular text on the internet.

Relatives' "interrogation": the examination hall for the interpersonally sensitive

Visiting relatives and exchanging greetings should originally be pleasant, but some people always feel as if they are being "interrogated" when they hear relatives' questions, feeling heavy pressure and anxiety, worrying about leaving a bad impression on relatives or being looked down upon by them. Sometimes, even when relatives make unreasonable comments, they will wrong themselves and not argue back.

This is actually a fairly common phenomenon. This tendency to constantly worry about negative social evaluations and to adopt defensive behaviors to avoid them is called interpersonal sensitivity, and it reflects an inequality of status. Research in social psychology has found that members of companies with lower status are more interpersonally sensitive than higher-status leaders, because figuring out leaders' evaluation criteria can mostly help them better please them and gain rewards. During the process of visiting relatives, interpersonally sensitive people regard their relatives as higher-status examiners, which is why they are so fearful of their evaluations.

When we were children and students, being sensitive to the evaluations of parents and teachers was often beneficial to us. However, research on adults has found that interpersonal sensitivity is a susceptibility factor for emotional problems such as depression and anxiety, and may also increase the risk of illness. Therefore, for interpersonally sensitive people, only by no longer treating relatives as their examiners can they protect their physical and mental health.

Read-but-reply-randomly: a subtle way of "tearing up the exam paper"

There are many ways to stop letting relatives be your examiners. Some people choose to "cut off kinship," not visiting relatives, which is equivalent to not taking the exam; some choose silence, creating a persona of being introverted and socially anxious, which is equivalent to handing in a blank paper; some choose to bicker and retort with relatives, even coming to blows, which is equivalent to tearing up the exam paper.

But for interpersonally sensitive people, none of these methods may be as good as "read-but-reply-randomly." Replying "randomly" and speaking "randomly" is like writing "expresses the author's homesickness" on a proof problem in a math exam, or drawing pictures on the essay question in a Chinese exam. Such a response deconstructs the seriousness of relatives' questions, which originally resembled an examiner's test, and with laughter and conversation pulls down the relatives who originally fancied themselves examiners and seemed to have higher status. It can muddle through and cope with the situation without going so far as to tear off all pretense with relatives.

Behind "random replies": young people seizing the right to speak

Actually, you can't blame young people for being sensitive. Every year, chats with relatives inevitably carry an undercurrent of flaunting the right to speak. Common examples in the past include: elders questioning and lecturing younger people based on their life experience, and bosses pointing fingers at workers by relying on their higher incomes—all of these are manifestations of their greater right to speak.

But in recent years, due to the rapid development of technology and the internet, it is instead young people who more easily master new technologies and use them to see a bigger world. As the mystery and unattainability of elders gradually dissolve, when young people chat about topics such as live-streamed Spring Festival Gala red envelopes and internet memes, it is instead young people who seem more "mysterious" and "impressive." The philosopher Foucault said, "Discourse is power." In this process, young people are bit by bit seizing the right to speak.

"Read-but-reply-randomly" and actively "replying randomly" is one of the more nonsensical ways of displaying the right to speak. Among young people who are more proficient in this set of game rules, some can already talk freely in front of relatives about topics they are good at, and even "set exam papers" for their relatives.

Going "crazy" together: finding the secret code of a small circle

Besides muddling through with relatives, "read-but-reply-randomly" is also a social tool for young people. Just as your cousin, through a bout of random replies, let your sister know that they were surfing the same stretch of sea. In a room packed with relatives, the two of them formed a small circle—what social psychology calls an in-group—creating a sense of intimacy and belonging between them, which allowed them to still feel secure internally when facing unfamiliar relatives.

Of course, even though many good friends will "read-but-reply-randomly" and go "crazy" together, not everyone likes doing this. Some netizens have said that if their colleagues or friends长期 "respond to everything but follow through on nothing," it would also be troubling. We need "read-but-reply-randomly" to achieve more equal relationships, and we also need sincere communication to maintain closer relationships.