Why do I giggle after I speak?
Confronting the giggling craze that’s taken over my speech.
I first noticed it on the phone with my best friend from college. During our hour-long conversation, I couldn’t get through a few sentences without tacking on little half-chuckles to the end of my statements. Then I noticed my friend was doing it too. WHY? What had come over us?
It annoyed the hell out of me, and once I noticed it was happening, I felt powerless against the giggling curse. I noticed myself doing it when I spoke to colleagues, friends, acquaintances…it was incessant.
Then, I started noticing it in the women around me.
I have one friend who laughs loudly at the end of her sentences, but only when she’s trying to be assertive or make a point. The giggling obviously has the opposite effect, and leaves her listeners (me included) a bit confused. Is it supposed to be funny? Is she upset, or nervous, or confused, or all those things at once? It makes her sound more friendly, sure, but it robs her sentences of the intended effect.
The curse was catching. A vlogger I follow religiously (and who had never irritated me before) did it regularly in her videos, and once I noticed I couldn’t unhear it. I tried to listen carefully to what she was saying. She would giggle after saying innocuous things about her day, and even threw in a little under-the-breath giggle as she spoke. It fascinated me.
A line from “The Defining Decade” sprung to mind, where the author Dr Meg Jay describes one of her female clients as “feeding pleasing sips of herself to the world.” I felt this 100% applied to the giggling craze that had taken over my speech.
I realized the giggling happened much more frequently when I was nervous, lacking confidence, or when speaking to people I didn’t know well.
Somewhere along the line, my brain said — if you giggle at the end of sentences you will seem more likable! It will stop the end of your sentences from sounding harsh! It will cover any awkwardness or nervousness you feel! Oh, and you’ll sound like a complete weirdo, but that’s a small price to pay to come across as amiable surely?
Maybe it’s my deep-seated desire to be perceived as funny. It’s such a prized personality trait. If I laugh, maybe that will encourage you to do it too? Even though I haven’t actually said anything funny? All I’ve done is comment that the weather is looking rather gloomy, or that living in the city is great because you can walk everywhere.
Giggling at the end of my sentences is an unwelcome inhabitant in the home of my brain, along with using upspeak when I’m trying to be assertive. Now I’m conscious of it, I’m determined that it has to go.
It reminds me of how many women feel the need to say sorry so often, or use too many exclamation points in communications to maintain a positive tone. Chalk it up to years of being told to be mindful about “how you come across.” We’ve all had that talk.
